Would Superman actually be the Most powerful DC hero if....?

[Johnny Thunders!]

And I think it’s telling that after creating Superman, arguably the end result of the Super human concept, Jerry Siegel goes Cosmic and creates the Spectre.

[Robanker]

I think it'd be a wash pretty much instantly. You have some bullshit like GLs being able to construct Kryptonite sometimes (because it's green) instead of just the image of it, and every new character is suddenly JL-level because that's what impresses new readers. The biggest bad, the toppest of top dogs. Even new Bat characters are Robin level instantly because that's what's apparently compelling. Nobody wants to read about the actual street level because that's been creeped upward to superhuman martial arts, infinite money and pretty much not actually street level.

If you debuted a new street level hero in Gotham who didn't have pre-installed skills, superpowers or some other reason to catch up to people who trained their entire lives (Bruce) or most of them (Dick), nobody would read because the character can't stand with the giants. That's just how superhero comics have evolved today. A good example of this is Duke Thomas. They really don't seem to have a solid direction for him and keep lumping more powers or futures to see if that will drum up interest. First he was part of We Are Robin (which was arguably his most interesting angle) and then became Lark, The Signal and somewhere along the line got light and shadow powers and apparently does some stuff in the Dark Multiverse in the future. He was intended as a street level character but has spiraled into someone who is punching multiversal entities in dark futures because the concept of a scale has all but been eliminated. I'm not picking on Duke specifically here, but he does illustrate the point. Batman does it as well, going so far as to manhandle Darkseid to revive his dead son. Fucking Darkseid.

Meanwhile you have people like Cassandra Cain who generally stay at their power level, however strong it may be (Cass being DC's greatest hand-to-hand fighter, bar none). If they started pushing her, absolutely expect Cassandra Cain to beat up Despero with nothing more than martial arts. Because power creep's a mess all over the place.

I'm not saying this because "back in muh day" but more to illustrate that there is no one character towing the power creep (and if any single one is, it's Batgod)-- it's the readership. We all want our characters to be as good as the top brass (who Superman acts as the bar for these days) so if they can't stand beside him, it's considered a disservice to them.

If everyone had to be set on a power scale? Sure, it'd be fine... until someone wanted to elevate X, and then suddenly everything either needs to shift or things look stupid and you have to get back to where we are now. Wonder Woman used to only be able to glide on air currents and now she flies. Why? Because we need her to be closer to Superman in strength since she's the embodiment of female superheroes and needs to be equitable to the ur example of a male superhero. Other characters have since elevated from their initial power levels. The Flash got the Speed Force, GL lost the weakness to yellow/24 hour charge, Aquaman doesn't need to return to water after a set time or die, Clark scales to remain "Superman." If everyone else scales but Clark remains stagnant, he more or less loses a lot of what he was created to be and part of what makes him special. There's also the aspect that, you know, he is the genre. He was the big bang. The spark. He's special in a way none of these other characters are insofar as they're all responses to him. That has to account for something.

The character was created to essentially be the strongest guy in any room so on some level if you start kicking him down the food chain he essentially stops being Superman. The same for characters having more will than a Green Lantern. On some level, even though every protagonist needs to have a 10 in the willpower stat, GLs always need to be able to take it to 11 or they're not GLs.

There's always been some characters who should take Superman's lunch money (The Spectre, as an example) but overall he's designed to be "absolute Power that remains incorruptible." What you're essentially asking is "would Wonder Woman be so inspirational if she wasn't the premier female superhero," "would Flash be so fast if the speed force didn't allow him to be," or so on. They're part of the character's entire gimmick. I don't think you can reasonably say someone like GL should be able to beat Superman easily and actually say you're respecting both characters. Likewise for Diana. Both of them are above GLs by design.

[lemonpeace]

no disrespect but hot take: I think the notion that "Superman is designed to be the strongest" is a poor reading of what Superman is based in early comics not really having the concept of a power scale or really considering the wider context a shared universe; Superman was just as strong or fast has he needed to be to resolve the story because that's what he does, no real thought went into it besides that. Superman is meant to be an aspirational figure, a role model, back then that meant just being a strongest most manliest man but as our understanding of moral strength, emotional intelligence, and masculinity expanded, people have taken the wrong lessons and carried them over to a shared universe that only became more and more complex. being the most perfect powerful man isn't synonymous with being a role model or being aspirational. the notion that Superman needs to be or is made to be the strongest thing ever is inconsistent with his actual story in-canon because he has documented weakness (which some characters expressly specialize in), he's been bested in combats, Kryptonians aren't some unstoppable race of gods, and Kal isn't some special type of Kryptonian; he's just an average guy from Krypton.

the "Superman is the strongest thing ever" concept is based more in intertextual/metatextual reasons rather than internal narrative logic, which is simply bad storytelling when dealing with stories rooted in complex worldbuilding and interconnected character lore. when you are dealing with an ecosystem of superpowers in a story (for lack of a better term) the power scale doesn't work if it's just a hard tier list, it has to be rock-paper-scissors where one characters skillset trumps the other.
Superman makes sense when he is doing the work and proving he's a good role model but I'm sorry, I don't care a logistical or narrative gymnastics you do you ain't gonna sell me on "the most perfect and powerful person in not just the country, or the planet, or the universe, or the Multiverse, but the entire history of story is this fucking white guy from heartland America". that will always take me out of any story. there is always a biggest fish, and the bigger fish will come in many form.

just speaking to the void tho. everyone knows Duke Thomas is the strongest character in the DC universe

[Powerboy]

no disrespect but hot take: I think the notion that "Superman is designed to be the strongest" is a poor reading of what Superman is based in early comics not really having the concept of a power scale or really considering the wider context a shared universe; Superman was just as strong or fast has he needed to be to resolve the story because that's what he does, no real thought went into it besides that. Superman is meant to be an aspirational figure, a role model, back then that meant just being a strongest most manliest man but as our understanding of moral strength, emotional intelligence, and masculinity expanded, people have taken the wrong lessons and carried them over to a shared universe that only became more and more complex. being the most perfect powerful man isn't synonymous with being a role model or being aspirational. the notion that Superman needs to be or is made to be the strongest thing ever is inconsistent with his actual story in-canon because he has documented weakness (which some characters expressly specialize in), he's been bested in combats, Kryptonians aren't some unstoppable race of gods, and Kal isn't some special type of Kryptonian; he's just an average guy from Krypton.

the "Superman is the strongest thing ever" concept is based more in intertextual/metatextual reasons rather than internal narrative logic, which is simply bad storytelling when dealing with stories rooted in complex worldbuilding and interconnected character lore. when you are dealing with an ecosystem of superpowers in a story (for lack of a better term) the power scale doesn't work if it's just a hard tier list, it has to be rock-paper-scissors where one characters skillset trumps the other.
Superman makes sense when he is doing the work and proving he's a good role model but I'm sorry, I don't care a logistical or narrative gymnastics you do you ain't gonna sell me on "the most perfect and powerful person in not just the country, or the planet, or the universe, or the Multiverse, but the entire history of story is this fucking white guy from heartland America". that will always take me out of any story. there is always a biggest fish, and the bigger fish will come in many form.

just speaking to the void tho. everyone knows Duke Thomas is the strongest character in the DC universe

I think most of us would agree with that. There was no competition when Superman started. I suspect that anyone who thinks Superman, Batman, the Flash (Jay Garrick), Green Lantern "Alan Scott" and so on were intended to exist in the same world in 1939 or 1940 are making a modern assumption. Probably, Siegal didn't even intend for anyone to think the Spectre existed in the same world as Superman. The closest to that sort of mentality you might have would have been Marsten's WW who, to my understanding, was writtenespecifically to equal and surpass Superman. If Superman did something, within a couple of months, WW did something equaling or surpassing it.

It only became an issue once characters were established to exist in the same universe although I suppose one could argue that the Superman/ WW competition crossed companies but the competition seemed one-sided. I don't know that Siegal was interested in Superman competing with WW though WMM clearly was having WW compete with Superman.

At this point, I don't know that putting them all into separate universes would stop the arguments and DC is not going to do that anyway.

One argument I hear is that, with the price of comics now and the lack of continuity, all that matters is the series you are currently reading and only as written by a specific author.

In other words, who cares if the Flash leaves Superman in the dust in a Flash comic? That's only canon in the Flash comics and only ones written by the author of that story. Even if it gets a vague footnote in Action Comics or Superman, it's not really canon for those comics. In fact, AC and Superman may not be canon with each other at times.

If WW beat Superman in her comic, so what? It's canon in WW comics or specifically Rucka WW comics but nowhere else.

So, in many respects, it's a pointless debate.

[Robanker]

no disrespect but hot take: I think the notion that "Superman is designed to be the strongest" is a poor reading of what Superman is based in early comics not really having the concept of a power scale or really considering the wider context a shared universe; Superman was just as strong or fast has he needed to be to resolve the story because that's what he does, no real thought went into it besides that. Superman is meant to be an aspirational figure, a role model, back then that meant just being a strongest most manliest man but as our understanding of moral strength, emotional intelligence, and masculinity expanded, people have taken the wrong lessons and carried them over to a shared universe that only became more and more complex. being the most perfect powerful man isn't synonymous with being a role model or being aspirational. the notion that Superman needs to be or is made to be the strongest thing ever is inconsistent with his actual story in-canon because he has documented weakness (which some characters expressly specialize in), he's been bested in combats, Kryptonians aren't some unstoppable race of gods, and Kal isn't some special type of Kryptonian; he's just an average guy from Krypton.

the "Superman is the strongest thing ever" concept is based more in intertextual/metatextual reasons rather than internal narrative logic, which is simply bad storytelling when dealing with stories rooted in complex worldbuilding and interconnected character lore. when you are dealing with an ecosystem of superpowers in a story (for lack of a better term) the power scale doesn't work if it's just a hard tier list, it has to be rock-paper-scissors where one characters skillset trumps the other.
Superman makes sense when he is doing the work and proving he's a good role model but I'm sorry, I don't care a logistical or narrative gymnastics you do you ain't gonna sell me on "the most perfect and powerful person in not just the country, or the planet, or the universe, or the Multiverse, but the entire history of story is this fucking white guy from heartland America". that will always take me out of any story. there is always a biggest fish, and the bigger fish will come in many form.

just speaking to the void tho. everyone knows Duke Thomas is the strongest character in the DC universe

His being the strongest ties specifically to his embodying the notion that absolute power need not corrupt absolutely.

I really don't see what the color of his skin has to do with the argument, though.

[Rightoya]

I think it'd be a wash pretty much instantly. You have some bullshit like GLs being able to construct Kryptonite sometimes (because it's green) instead of just the image of it, and every new character is suddenly JL-level because that's what impresses new readers. The biggest bad, the toppest of top dogs. Even new Bat characters are Robin level instantly because that's what's apparently compelling. Nobody wants to read about the actual street level because that's been creeped upward to superhuman martial arts, infinite money and pretty much not actually street level.

If you debuted a new street level hero in Gotham who didn't have pre-installed skills, superpowers or some other reason to catch up to people who trained their entire lives (Bruce) or most of them (Dick), nobody would read because the character can't stand with the giants. That's just how superhero comics have evolved today. A good example of this is Duke Thomas. They really don't seem to have a solid direction for him and keep lumping more powers or futures to see if that will drum up interest. First he was part of We Are Robin (which was arguably his most interesting angle) and then became Lark, The Signal and somewhere along the line got light and shadow powers and apparently does some stuff in the Dark Multiverse in the future. He was intended as a street level character but has spiraled into someone who is punching multiversal entities in dark futures because the concept of a scale has all but been eliminated. I'm not picking on Duke specifically here, but he does illustrate the point. Batman does it as well, going so far as to manhandle Darkseid to revive his dead son. Fucking Darkseid.

Meanwhile you have people like Cassandra Cain who generally stay at their power level, however strong it may be (Cass being DC's greatest hand-to-hand fighter, bar none). If they started pushing her, absolutely expect Cassandra Cain to beat up Despero with nothing more than martial arts. Because power creep's a mess all over the place.

I'm not saying this because "back in muh day" but more to illustrate that there is no one character towing the power creep (and if any single one is, it's Batgod)-- it's the readership. We all want our characters to be as good as the top brass (who Superman acts as the bar for these days) so if they can't stand beside him, it's considered a disservice to them.

If everyone had to be set on a power scale? Sure, it'd be fine... until someone wanted to elevate X, and then suddenly everything either needs to shift or things look stupid and you have to get back to where we are now. Wonder Woman used to only be able to glide on air currents and now she flies. Why? Because we need her to be closer to Superman in strength since she's the embodiment of female superheroes and needs to be equitable to the ur example of a male superhero. Other characters have since elevated from their initial power levels. The Flash got the Speed Force, GL lost the weakness to yellow/24 hour charge, Aquaman doesn't need to return to water after a set time or die, Clark scales to remain "Superman." If everyone else scales but Clark remains stagnant, he more or less loses a lot of what he was created to be and part of what makes him special. There's also the aspect that, you know, he is the genre. He was the big bang. The spark. He's special in a way none of these other characters are insofar as they're all responses to him. That has to account for something.

The character was created to essentially be the strongest guy in any room so on some level if you start kicking him down the food chain he essentially stops being Superman. The same for characters having more will than a Green Lantern. On some level, even though every protagonist needs to have a 10 in the willpower stat, GLs always need to be able to take it to 11 or they're not GLs.

There's always been some characters who should take Superman's lunch money (The Spectre, as an example) but overall he's designed to be "absolute Power that remains incorruptible." What you're essentially asking is "would Wonder Woman be so inspirational if she wasn't the premier female superhero," "would Flash be so fast if the speed force didn't allow him to be," or so on. They're part of the character's entire gimmick. I don't think you can reasonably say someone like GL should be able to beat Superman easily and actually say you're respecting both characters. Likewise for Diana. Both of them are above GLs by design.

Even if we would say that Superman needs that aspect to be special, and others like Flash or Aquaman have other things, Wonder Woman and Shazam are direct extensions of Superman's concept and would need that same aspect to be special if that is the case.

But i still don't think that SUPERman should be SUPERIORman to begin with, so why shouldn't the writers take the idea of a shared verse seriously and make a theoretical fight between Superman, Wonder Woman, Shazam, Martian Manhunter, Green Lantern and Flash a toss up, with a kind of rock/paper/scissors system and Flash being the fastest but with some being very close and him not being magnitudes faster than the others, with Wonder Woman being the most skilled but not basically Karate Kid on steroids, with Superman being the physically strongest or most invulnerable but just to a degree that some are close enough and the others can make up for it in some way, and so on. I would think that is respecting these superheroes far more than the DCEU Justice League, Flash leaving Superman completely in the dust, or Death Earth.

[The Darknight Detective]

If you want Superman to be knocked down a peg or two (or more) power-wise, then you need to do something about his popularity. If he were only selling 10-20 thousands copies and had only one title to his name, then you might see things change. Now one can question the fairness of this regarding his or her favorites, but profit trumps fairness every time.

Of course, the next thing that will be said is if your favorite character had the same creator team, buildup, promotion, etc., that character would be just as big as Supes and maybe even Batman. But I'm older than many of you here and I have seen enough projects with everything going for it still bomb, because not every character or concept is palatable to enough people out there. I know this will be denied and there will be posts refuting my post, even though I never said its impossible for a less popular character to advance. (only that it's not a given). I have seen too many comics, TV shows, movies, etc. that I loved that just never caught on with the masses, so I know from experience.

[Ra-El]

I think most of us would agree with that. There was no competition when Superman started. I suspect that anyone who thinks Superman, Batman, the Flash (Jay Garrick), Green Lantern "Alan Scott" and so on were intended to exist in the same world in 1939 or 1940 are making a modern assumption. Probably, Siegal didn't even intend for anyone to think the Spectre existed in the same world as Superman. The closest to that sort of mentality you might have would have been Marsten's WW who, to my understanding, was writtenespecifically to equal and surpass Superman. If Superman did something, within a couple of months, WW did something equaling or surpassing it.

It only became an issue once characters were established to exist in the same universe although I suppose one could argue that the Superman/ WW competition crossed companies but the competition seemed one-sided. I don't know that Siegal was interested in Superman competing with WW though WMM clearly was having WW compete with Superman.

At this point, I don't know that putting them all into separate universes would stop the arguments and DC is not going to do that anyway.

One argument I hear is that, with the price of comics now and the lack of continuity, all that matters is the series you are currently reading and only as written by a specific author.

In other words, who cares if the Flash leaves Superman in the dust in a Flash comic? That's only canon in the Flash comics and only ones written by the author of that story. Even if it gets a vague footnote in Action Comics or Superman, it's not really canon for those comics. In fact, AC and Superman may not be canon with each other at times.

If WW beat Superman in her comic, so what? It's canon in WW comics or specifically Rucka WW comics but nowhere else.

So, in many respects, it's a pointless debate.

That's part of the problem, we don't see much Flash or Wonder Woman getting their asses beaten in Action Comics, but Superman getting his ass kicked in Flash or WW? That happens way more.
Sometimes I wish Superman would be established as not the strongest, let WW, Shazam, MM or whatever be the strongest, as long as it also resulted in WW, Shazam, MM or whatever been the ones who would get beaten to show how powerful a hero or villain is.

[Gaius]

That's part of the problem, we don't see much Flash or Wonder Woman getting their asses beaten in Action Comics, but Superman getting his ass kicked in Flash or WW? That happens way more.
Sometimes I wish Superman would be established as not the strongest, let WW, Shazam, MM or whatever be the strongest, as long as it also resulted in WW, Shazam, MM or whatever been the ones who would get beaten to show how powerful a hero or villain is.

I've read most Wonder Woman since 2011 save for a run and some fill-in issues. I think I could count the times Superman appeared in her comic on both hands, let alone them getting in a fight or him getting his ass kicked there.

[OopsIdiditagain]

Superman's bag of tricks can beat anybody else's. No, he isn't omnipotent and can be licked temporarily, but in the end he will win (except against Batman, of course ). It doesn't matter what anybody thinks or wishes, this is just a de facto DC rule.

I can see Superman beating every enemy but I don't see him solving every problem they create.

[The Darknight Detective]

I can see Superman beating every enemy but I don't see him solving every problem they create.

Maybe, but he's going to solve more of them 99.9% more times than any of the other superheroes.

[Ra-El]

I've read most Wonder Woman since 2011 save for a run and some fill-in issues. I think I could count the times Superman appeared in her comic on both hands, let alone them getting in a fight or him getting his ass kicked there.

Poor example I gave, but my argument is the same, Superman is known as the strongest, so when DC needs to establish a hero or villain having them beat Superman is the most common go to move. So, if Superman getting off the top of the mountain means some other character will be the one getting one-shoted to set up a new threat, I'm fine with the change.

[Rightoya]

That's part of the problem, we don't see much Flash or Wonder Woman getting their asses beaten in Action Comics, but Superman getting his ass kicked in Flash or WW? That happens way more.

In what Flash or Wonder Woman comics happens that?

Sometimes I wish Superman would be established as not the strongest, let WW, Shazam, MM or whatever be the strongest, as long as it also resulted in WW, Shazam, MM or whatever been the ones who would get beaten to show how powerful a hero or villain is.

Sounds not truly like Superman, but at least for Wonder Woman still like an improvement.

[SuperX]

The problem here is some want to, but can't rewrite history. Superman came 1st,he has been established as the top dog, the moral leader of the DCU, and yes a white kid from Kansas. Those happened before all of you were even born,your not changing any of that, you never will, it's written in stone, stone that will be here well after we are all gone.

Now you don't have to accept it, you can talk **** about him, while praising your pet hero, that's fine, go ahead.

[Rightoya]

The problem here is some want to, but can't rewrite history. Superman came 1st,he has been established as the top dog, the moral leader of the DCU, and yes a white kid from Kansas. Those happened before all of you were even born,your not changing any of that, you never will, it's written in stone, stone that will be here well after we are all gone.

Now you don't have to accept it, you can talk **** about him, while praising your pet hero, that's fine, go ahead.

You are still not making any sense, and were just talking about actually rewriting history, by making Wonder Woman weaker than Hercules for some reason.