Superman's intelligence

[Jon Clark]

I think the problem is the ability to write shades of intelligence. It's easy to set up a mystery for Sherlock Holmes where you plant the clues and he alone picks up on them. Or to have Reed Richard or Tony Stark use technobabble to explain how their miracle tech works.

It's when you want to show that not only is Batman the best detective, but that Dick Grayson, Lois Lane, and Jim Gordon are better detectives than most but still not quite Batman's equal. Normally you get Bruce as Sherlock dazzling in his insight and every other character as John Watson going "I don't see it. Can you explain how you figured it out?". If the point of the scene is to show that two characters are both smart you can aim at having them one-up each other ("Of course it was a merlot, but what year", "1943, but which vineyard" ...). Over time though it is hard to keep that up when you have to keep track of the fact Batman is on top of the detective list- Jimmy Olsen is at the bottom and a dozen other characters have to be slotted in between especially when the writer themselves is smarter than Jimmy but not really as smart as Bruce.

[DochaDocha]

I think the problem is the ability to write shades of intelligence.

Heh, my brother has complained a bit how a comic book "scientist" has all the answers. Like in the movie X-Men: First Class, Hank McCoy is the guy who helped build Cerebro. He also designed the Blackbird. He's also the pilot of the Blackbird. And in his spare time, he tinkers with the mutation gene. In real life, you have five completely-different tasks, you get five experts to work on it, but in comic books all you need to be is a scientist and you know everything because you earned like 4 PhDs and 12 Masters Degrees.

[phonogram12]

Heh, my brother has complained a bit how a comic book "scientist" has all the answers. Like in the movie X-Men: First Class, Hank McCoy is the guy who helped build Cerebro. He also designed the Blackbird. He's also the pilot of the Blackbird. And in his spare time, he tinkers with the mutation gene. In real life, you have five completely-different tasks, you get five experts to work on it, but in comic books all you need to be is a scientist and you know everything because you earned like 4 PhDs and 12 Masters Degrees.

I agree. Off the top of my head, I can think of maybe four characters from the big two who I feel would be able to do all of these things comfortably: Reed Richards, Dr. Doom, Lex, and maybe The Atom (as much as I love Batman, I'm just not a fan of the idea that he's some sort of genius inventor/engineer/scientist on top of everything else. I mean, isn't being one of the world's greatest martial artists, escape artists, and the world's greatest detective enough). Which is why I found it rather refreshing when Bruce Banner openly admitted that the science behind time travel is a bit out of his field in Avengers Endgame (while at the same time it kind of annoyed me how quickly Tony Stark became an expert in it).

[Stanlos]

How smart and intelligent should Superman be?

Personally I believe he should legitimately have a genius IQ on par with Luthor being the son of an incredible scientist from one of the most advanced civilizations in the universe.

When comparing him to Batman, I say Superman is smarter in the more mathematical, quantitative, scientific discovery aspect while Bruce is smarter at the more abstract or puzzle solving/pattern deduction concept of intelligence.

**bleep** Luthor. Supes should be superintelligent

[Jon Clark]

Heh, my brother has complained a bit how a comic book "scientist" has all the answers. Like in the movie X-Men: First Class, Hank McCoy is the guy who helped build Cerebro. He also designed the Blackbird. He's also the pilot of the Blackbird. And in his spare time, he tinkers with the mutation gene. In real life, you have five completely-different tasks, you get five experts to work on it, but in comic books all you need to be is a scientist and you know everything because you earned like 4 PhDs and 12 Masters Degrees.

There is that too. But my point was more that no one seems able to consistently write Hank McCoy being a brilliant scientist while simultaneously letting someone else be smarter.

There aren't a lot of writers who can put the JLA in conversation where they are examining a device and give them varied skills. Hal Jordan couldn't build a plane, but might have some insights based of having flown them. Barry has a lot of chemical and forensic training plus high-speed physics from his own experience. Ollie has some engineering skill based of being able to design and build the variety of specialty arrows he's used. So why do I suspect Batman would be the only one with insight on a superfast vehicle design with the possible exception of Steel? Why also is it likely that Barry, Hal and Ollie would be shown as no more insightful than Aquaman, Zatanna or Elongated Man on this fast plane/car?

And to bring it back to Clark- why is it that as an investigative reporter he is not only less of a detective than Bruce (which he may be) but not much more skilled than a random guy off the street? My answer is that the writer is most cases can only handle characters being "the greatest ever" or "no better than the next guy" with no subtlety for the guy who is "better than average but not top of the class".

[marhawkman]

I mean, I'd be open to seeing it, I just don't have much faith in the execution. Or maybe I'm just thinking about how much uglier these boards would get as a result? lol

Another thing I hadn't considered is that some writers may actually prefer to write a more "farm boy" version of Clark or simply may not know how to write a smarter version of the character.

Guh, I'm really beginning to hate shared universes even more now. This is something I really don't see anywhere near as much at Marvel.

Part of it is the aptitude of the writer. Some writers just can't write detective stories... which is probably why we have so much ninja Batman. It's a different writing skill than writing detective Batman.

[DochaDocha]

There is that too. But my point was more that no one seems able to consistently write Hank McCoy being a brilliant scientist while simultaneously letting someone else be smarter.

There aren't a lot of writers who can put the JLA in conversation where they are examining a device and give them varied skills. Hal Jordan couldn't build a plane, but might have some insights based of having flown them. Barry has a lot of chemical and forensic training plus high-speed physics from his own experience. Ollie has some engineering skill based of being able to design and build the variety of specialty arrows he's used. So why do I suspect Batman would be the only one with insight on a superfast vehicle design with the possible exception of Steel? Why also is it likely that Barry, Hal and Ollie would be shown as no more insightful than Aquaman, Zatanna or Elongated Man on this fast plane/car?

And to bring it back to Clark- why is it that as an investigative reporter he is not only less of a detective than Bruce (which he may be) but not much more skilled than a random guy off the street? My answer is that the writer is most cases can only handle characters being "the greatest ever" or "no better than the next guy" with no subtlety for the guy who is "better than average but not top of the class".

Agree that there's tendency to write intelligence in a binary style. You got it or you don't. When the writers aren't on point and their favorite character is Batman, they fall into the trap of boxing characters into roles, and Batman's role is being the smart guy. At best, everyone else waits for Batman to have the final say. At worst, everyone else's brain shuts off while they wait for Batman to come up with an answer. I think the Justice League cartoon was a repeat offender on this. The New 52-inspired DTVs did a little better in this regard, but Superman never had a standout moment in the JL-titled movies, or even in the DoS movie.

A lot of people love the Crisis on Two Earths movie, but the end lost me as a fan. It was too much for me that 1) the finale was just literally standing around and waiting while Batman was fighting to save the day and 2) Batman understood the superspeed effects better than Wally and Johnny Quick.

[NaVi]

WW, GL, Flash, MM, are at the level of Superman and most comic fans keep crying because according to them Superman is too powerful, whatever you do they cry, the most logical thing is to give them a real reason to cry So Superman will be smarter than Lex/Batman and that without his powers, with his powers Lex/Batman are like monkeys. It's silly that Superman is always limited by other characters, he can't be as fast as Flash, he can't be as smart as Batman, he can't be as skilled as WW, as far as I know Superman is his own character and was created FIRST, We can accept that a human fights against a god, but not that a being thousands of times more advanced than humans is more intelligent than a human.

[phonogram12]

And this is why sometimes I think they'd each be better off in their own universes. Compromises are always going to have to be made while working in groups, so unless you really want your fave character to show up someone else's fave character, I really don't see the point.

[llozymandias]

And Superman being faster, stronger and smarter than everyone else isn't?

Superman isn't anymore deserving of sitting at the top of the food chain than anyone else just because he is falsely believed to have came first. And personally I find it daft that so many fans think not being as smart as Batman or as fast as the Flash is a problem when the guy is still treated as more powerful than 98% of superheroes even in post crisis. And he's the only superhero who fans think should be limited in some way.

Actually Superman did come first. The superhero genre basically started with him.

[llozymandias]

**bleep** Luthor. Supes should be superintelligent

Pre-coie, Luthor & Superman were both written as superintelligent. That changed post-coie. Superman became an average (or below) intellect guy who just happened to have superpowers. While Lex became an average (or below) intellect guy, who was slightly clever & had lots of money.

[SiegePerilous02]

Actually Superman did come first. The superhero genre basically started with him.

He was technically preceded by Dr. Occult I believe. But the entire genre as we know it was kick started by him, with Batman, Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel in particular being created as responses to his success while adding twists of their own

So in many of the ways that matter, he is essentially first.

[Adekis]

Yeah. Dr Occult, Zorro, Hugo Danner, Popeye, Flash Gordon, The Phantom, The Shadow, The Spider... Gilgamesh and Enkidu if you go back far enough! There are a lot of characters we might retroactively consider Super-Heroes, if we wanted, but the genre was named after Superman for a reason.

[achilles]

He should definitely have super intelligence. He’s an alien from an advanced race of beings. Like The Flash, Superman’s brain would have to work at super speed. He should be able to process information way faster than an average human.

Not just things like science but also language. Superman should be fluent in pretty much every earth language. In season 1 of Superman and Lois, Supes is in Latin American stopping a bank robbery and can speak fluent Spanish when addressing a police officer. I loved seeing that.

Superman’s intelligence should be on full display anytime the Fortress of Solitude is explored, like in the Silver Age or All Star Superman. He creates Superman robots, experiments with alien weapons, makes Super powers serum, etc.

As an example of languages, this one involving Power Girl instead of Superman, but I'd assume they'd be about the same in that respect. Anyhow, the bit in question had PG knowing thousands of languages, mostly alien, but some human. So one would assume that's part of the power set of every Kryptonian. Though in PG's case, that knowledge was downloaded into her brain.

[Timothy Hunter]

Superman should be very intelligent. A divine talent for problem solving and detection, a skill he honed from his years as a reporter. However, his talents in the sciences aren't enough for him to be an equal of Lex Luthor, Ultra Humanite, Toyman, or Brainiac. A worthy antagonist should trump the protagonist in a few ways, even if slightly. Think Columbo, not Reed Richards.

And no, Superman, while the most powerful superhero on the planet, shouldn't be as skilled a detective as Batman, or as fast as the Flash. Members of a team should be parts of a whole. Each character should have their one trait they excel at over anyone else both in terms of personality and power set.