More power doesn’t mean more interesting,

[Johnny Thunders!]

I don't think more anything means better, but I think it's in character for Superman to have more power. More than who, that's debatable but I don't read Daredevil comics when I am looking for Superman adventures and vice versa. There are plenty of stories out there that don't feature Superman, I read those when I want street level foes and street level drama. When it comes to Superman, I think power is part of the equation.

[PCN24454]

I don't think more anything means better, but I think it's in character for Superman to have more power. More than who, that's debatable but I don't read Daredevil comics when I am looking for Superman adventures and vice versa. There are plenty of stories out there that don't feature Superman, I read those when I want street level foes and street level drama. When it comes to Superman, I think power is part of the equation.

Street level is always too vague to mean anything to me, so I just ignore it. There are lots of superpowerful enemies that act like common street thugs.

[Johnny Thunders!]

Yeah but I mean like there is stories that are unique to the scale of power.

[JackDaw]

Yeah but I mean like there is stories that are unique to the scale of power.

Precisely.

Those stories that are allegedly taken off the table aren’t Superman stories. (I say allegedly...because how many times have we seen him temporarily de-powered by one ruse or another? Even at his peak power in the Silver Age, there were always red sun, red kryptonite, etc. Jeez...even a visit to the bottle city of Kandor if writers felt need to tell a Batman and Robin tale using him and Jimmy.)

Mega power is part of the essence of the character...it allows the exploration of one of the key Superman themes: how his character, his morality, prevents him from becoming either a monster or a god.

It’s a necessary part of the character, I think, that control comes from within him, not imposed on him by the existence of more powerful heroes/ law agents.

[Jcogginsa]

Precisely.

Those stories that are allegedly taken off the table aren’t Superman stories. (I say allegedly...because how many times have we seen him temporarily de-powered by one ruse or another? Even at his peak power in the Silver Age, there were always red sun, red kryptonite, etc. Jeez...even a visit to the bottle city of Kandor if writers felt need to tell a Batman and Robin tale using him and Jimmy.)

Mega power is part of the essence of the character...it allows the exploration of one of the key Superman themes: how his character, his morality, prevents him from becoming either a monster or a god.

It’s a necessary part of the character, I think, that control comes from within him, not imposed on him by the existence of more powerful heroes/ law agents.

Yeah, but doing Megapower well means there still needs to be limits on it.

When you make the character so strong that you can't actually demonstrate their strength in any meaningful way, you lose whatever benefits there are to be gained from having a character that powerful in the first place.

[Vordan]

Here’s the key thing: Superman isn’t a street level character. The arms dealers in Metropolis sell guns made in Space Hell (Apokolips). The terrorists come from the 5th Dimension. The corrupt CEO is trying to perform a hostile takeover of the planet. The badass mercenaries made their name killing off entire species. Superman’s power levels are bigger because his threat levels are bigger. Sure that means he’s never going to be in a story about struggling to make rent, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be in exciting stories with lots of action that also have something to say about love, family, greed, hate, the military-industrial complex, bigotry, hope, or any number of topics. It just means the stories are told using allegories.

Personally I don’t mind a weaker Superman but if you’re making him weaker, you might as well go all the way back to the Golden Age like Morrison did. Make him Spider-Man tier strong and fast and he needs to eat and sleep and pay rent because otherwise what’s the point?

Funnily enough they are nerfing Clark to make way for his son. He’s losing power again, we’ll see if the stories are somehow better. Often they are not, the Truth New 52 era was awful and he was weak there. The beginning of the New 52 with Morrison though was great. So a good writer matters more than power levels.

There are more stories that are taken off the table by Planet busting Superman than put on it.

Like what exactly? Be specific. And what makes you think even if that’s true, that people want to read those stories with Superman? Nobody is picking up Thor to see him struggle to beat muggers. Nobody is complaining about Hulk and the X-Men being immortal now. Different characters fulfill different needs.

[Jcogginsa]

Like what exactly? Be specific. And what makes you think even if that’s true, that people want to read those stories with Superman? Nobody is picking up Thor to see him struggle to beat muggers. Nobody is complaining about Hulk and the X-Men being immortal now. Different characters fulfill different needs.

Pretty much any story where he fights a peer opponent of any kind.

[Vordan]

Pretty much any story where he fights a peer opponent of any kind.

[Jcogginsa]

Yeah, and those stories get away with it by ignoring the fact that Superman fighting a peer would destroy the world they were fighting on. They write Superman to be weaker because otherwise the story couldn't work

[HsssH]

Might as well complain that Superman shouldn't be able to lift buildings since they should just collapse.

[JackDaw]

Yeah, but doing Megapower well means there still needs to be limits on it.

When you make the character so strong that you can't actually demonstrate their strength in any meaningful way, you lose whatever benefits there are to be gained from having a character that powerful in the first place.

Agreed.

And for what it’s worth IF Superman was set in a different fictional universe I would prefer him to have fairly low power levels.

But in modern DCU...with Green Lanterns galore, J’onn, Captain Marvel, Wonder Woman,Flash etc, etc all at outlandish power levels and many characters being written as more intelligent...I just don’t see how a mid level powered Superman works. There would be no remotely logical reason to have him on the elite teams such as the Justice League.

[Lapsus]

I always thought that metropolis limited him, It does not matter from what perspective I see it, Superman doing small stuff in one city feels as forced as Batman and Spiderman taking a spaceship and going to another dimension to defeat an Alien god.

Should be forbidden? No; Can they do this in a story arc? Yes; should this adventures be their regular stuff? Absolutely not.

Superman is power too, he should be global and be allowed to left the Earth more often. Lois and the Clark persona should never be a chain to him.

[DochaDocha]

Might as well complain that Superman shouldn't be able to lift buildings since they should just collapse.

I'm actually in favor of this, as I see it as the next frontier for superhero storytelling. And for Superman, it remedies the explicit problem that people say that everything's too easy for him because of his power. You end up not having to nerf Superman's raw powers, but now you introduce various other limitations and you force both Superman and the writer to come up with creative solutions that don't involve just using massive strength to lift massive object, etc.

The downside is that it can slow down the pace of stories and comes with its own set of limitations, but I also see it as an alternative to the monotonous take on superstrength in superhero media these days.

Now, I'm going to completely contradict myself and point out how ignoring real-ish physics is good, too. I posted this video the other day on another thread, but it applies even more here:



Obviously, I find this scene entertaining as hell, and it's only possible because of Superman's power (and blatantly ignoring real physics after I just advocated for it...). You certainly can't make every Superman fight scene end like this, but Superman's power makes it a possible scenario to tell, and it even works as the climax to the most dramatic scene in the episode. I think it certainly beats a run-of-the-mill fistfight that goes on for 60 seconds, and these little moments of fun do have value that you aren't going to get from a street-level hero for which everything is hard. Superman's power level is only overly-restrictive if you have the mindset that all fights have to have a similar tenor to a Batman fight.

[Jcogginsa]

Agreed.

And for what it’s worth IF Superman was set in a different fictional universe I would prefer him to have fairly low power levels.

But in modern DCU...with Green Lanterns galore, J’onn, Captain Marvel, Wonder Woman,Flash etc, etc all at outlandish power levels and many characters being written as more intelligent...I just don’t see how a mid level powered Superman works. There would be no remotely logical reason to have him on the elite teams such as the Justice League.

All of my arguments for Superman apply to those characters too.

[Vordan]

Yeah, and those stories get away with it by ignoring the fact that Superman fighting a peer would destroy the world they were fighting on. They write Superman to be weaker because otherwise the story couldn't work

How’s that any different from Batman stories ignoring that Bruce is a preptime god who can build mech suits that let him go toe to toe with Darkseid, yet somehow he doesn’t just build an Iron Bat suit to let him steamroll his Rogues? Or how Spider-Man is powerful and quick enough to beat the X-Men by himself, but struggles against the Sinister Six? Power levels suit the story, not the other way around in comics.