Are DC heroes and villains really overpowered?

[Sutekh]

We're supposed to believe Superman can take on an impossibly smart alien like Brainiac and Darkseid but a really smart human is his archenemy? Sorry I don't care how smart and prepared Lex is, how long he preps for it or that he always loses in the end. Superman should treat Lex like a mild nuisance at best not one of his biggest threats. Lex is no more believable against Clark than Bruce is.

And that's the rub. Superman, as a Kryptonian, is supposed to be two orders of magnitude smarter than a human, so he should be *a hundred times smarter* than Lex (or Batman, for that matter), *and* in at least some iterations, he's got the combined sum of the knowledge, language, culture, technology, religion, etc. of his entire planet Krypton downloaded into his noggin.

But whenever Lex (or Batman) is on the page, they have to suck all the smart-guy oxygen and Superman has to be kind of a clod, who, despite being able to think and react *at lightspeed*, processing information thousands of times more efficiently than any mere human genius, always seems to get outwitted by these sedated tree sloths stumbling around him.

And yeah, same with the Flash. He can travel at lightspeed. Light can zip around the entire planet *eight times in a single second.* He could deal with just about any situation as soon as he becomes aware of it (which could in itself be a limiting factor, since, unlike Superman, he can't hover in orbit and hear bees fart in China, or see a child's appendix bursting in Houston).

At a certain point, the level of power limits the amount of stories that can be told, and lazy writers tend to just have the character fail to use those abilities, so that they can fall back on traditional challenges that would apply to someone without those abilities, rather than craft a story / event that would challenge a person *with* those powers. DC does it. Marvel does it. (The list of X-Men related woes that could be solved with the snap of any one of a dozen of their Omega/time-manipulating/reality-manipulating mutants hands, is... ALL OF THEM. And that would be a boring ass book to read. Wish Girl becomes aware of a problem. Wish Girl snaps her fingers. Problem solved. 22 pages of advertising ensues?)

The solution would be to make characters who *don't* have ridonkulous abilities, and both companies indeed do that. Booster Gold, Vixen, the 'back half' of the Satellite League (the Hawks, Elongated Man, Atom, Red Tornado, Green Arrow, Black Canary), most of the Teen Titans, Outsiders, Birds of Prey, Justice Society (except Specter or Dr. Fate, of course!) or Legion of Super-Heroes lineups. Marvel also has a deep roster of 'not OP' characters like Captain America or Hawkeye, Black Panther or Spider-Man.

Feel like Superman, Flash, etc. are a little hard to craft plausible challenges for, and as a result, are sometimes written like morons who leave some readers frustrated that they don't even seem to bother to use their super-powers? Read about those other characters. There are a ton of them! And not *every* character needs to be written for my personal preferences, so I'm fine with those 'OP' characters existing, to serve *their* fans, even if I'm not buying those particular books.

[The True Detective]

Okay. Then what? Who does he fight? If the guy's flying around in super strong bullet proof armor that shoots lasers, you can't expect Riddler, Penguin or Two-Face to give him a hassle anymore. Nor can you expect allies like Catwoman or Nightwing to be able to keep up.

Shouldn't a good writer be able to think of interesting ways for them to still challenge him? It's not like Riddler and Penguin are physical threats to Batman even in his regular gear. Batman and other normals are running around with the JL why wouldn't the Batfamily be able to keep up with him in the scenario where he's using Iron Man level armor? I've already mentioned Superman vs Lex, a villain who's much weaker than the hero can easily work.

[The True Detective]

And that's the rub. Superman, as a Kryptonian, is supposed to be two orders of magnitude smarter than a human, so he should be *a hundred times smarter* than Lex (or Batman, for that matter), *and* in at least some iterations, he's got the combined sum of the knowledge, language, culture, technology, religion, etc. of his entire planet Krypton downloaded into his noggin.

But whenever Lex (or Batman) is on the page, they have to suck all the smart-guy oxygen and Superman has to be kind of a clod, who, despite being able to think and react *at lightspeed*, processing information thousands of times more efficiently than any mere human genius, always seems to get outwitted by these sedated tree sloths stumbling around him.

And yeah, same with the Flash. He can travel at lightspeed. Light can zip around the entire planet *eight times in a single second.* He could deal with just about any situation as soon as he becomes aware of it (which could in itself be a limiting factor, since, unlike Superman, he can't hover in orbit and hear bees fart in China, or see a child's appendix bursting in Houston).

At a certain point, the level of power limits the amount of stories that can be told, and lazy writers tend to just have the character fail to use those abilities, so that they can fall back on traditional challenges that would apply to someone without those abilities, rather than craft a story / event that would challenge a person *with* those powers. DC does it. Marvel does it. (The list of X-Men related woes that could be solved with the snap of any one of a dozen of their Omega/time-manipulating/reality-manipulating mutants hands, is... ALL OF THEM. And that would be a boring ass book to read. Wish Girl becomes aware of a problem. Wish Girl snaps her fingers. Problem solved. 22 pages of advertising ensues?)

The solution would be to make characters who *don't* have ridonkulous abilities, and both companies indeed do that. Booster Gold, Vixen, the 'back half' of the Satellite League (the Hawks, Elongated Man, Atom, Red Tornado, Green Arrow, Black Canary), most of the Teen Titans, Outsiders, Birds of Prey, Justice Society (except Specter or Dr. Fate, of course!) or Legion of Super-Heroes lineups. Marvel also has a deep roster of 'not OP' characters like Captain America or Hawkeye, Black Panther or Spider-Man.

Feel like Superman, Flash, etc. are a little hard to craft plausible challenges for, and as a result, are sometimes written like morons who leave some readers frustrated that they don't even seem to bother to use their super-powers? Read about those other characters. There are a ton of them! And not *every* character needs to be written for my personal preferences, so I'm fine with those 'OP' characters existing, to serve *their* fans, even if I'm not buying those particular books.

I agree with everything you said and just wanted to say your colorful example of a bee farting in China gave me a good laugh.

[Alan2099]

Imagine if Marvel did this sort of thing.

Iron Man fights Titanium Man, Mandarin, and MODOK, then every other issue he takes off his armor and goes and fights Daredevil's enemies with a grappling hook and boomerang.

[Lee Stone]

The solution would be to make characters who *don't* have ridonkulous abilities, and both companies indeed do that. Booster Gold, Vixen, the 'back half' of the Satellite League (the Hawks, Elongated Man, Atom, Red Tornado, Green Arrow, Black Canary), most of the Teen Titans, Outsiders, Birds of Prey, Justice Society (except Specter or Dr. Fate, of course!) or Legion of Super-Heroes lineups. Marvel also has a deep roster of 'not OP' characters like Captain America or Hawkeye, Black Panther or Spider-Man.

Feel like Superman, Flash, etc. are a little hard to craft plausible challenges for, and as a result, are sometimes written like morons who leave some readers frustrated that they don't even seem to bother to use their super-powers? Read about those other characters. There are a ton of them! And not *every* character needs to be written for my personal preferences, so I'm fine with those 'OP' characters existing, to serve *their* fans, even if I'm not buying those particular books.

Imagine Batman investigating a robbery, and the trail leads to Penguin...
Then on the next page, Penguin has been caught and put in jail by Superman, who just happened to be flying over and saw him with his telescopic and x-ray vision. Case closed.

[The True Detective]

Imagine if Marvel did this sort of thing.

Iron Man fights Titanium Man, Mandarin, and MODOK, then every other issue he takes off his armor and goes and fights Daredevil's enemies with a grappling hook and boomerang.

Is Tony Stark a peak human martial arts expert capable of fighting those villains without his armor? What a weird comparison. If Tony also had Daredevil/Batman's physical skills and abilities then what would be the problem with fighting weaker villains with lesser weapons? Using your own argument why doesn't Iron Man constantly use his strongest armors? Why not fight the Mandarin in a Hulk Buster level armor? Wouldn't that make his job a million times easier?

[achilles]

And that's the rub. Superman, as a Kryptonian, is supposed to be two orders of magnitude smarter than a human, so he should be *a hundred times smarter* than Lex (or Batman, for that matter), *and* in at least some iterations, he's got the combined sum of the knowledge, language, culture, technology, religion, etc. of his entire planet Krypton downloaded into his noggin.

But whenever Lex (or Batman) is on the page, they have to suck all the smart-guy oxygen and Superman has to be kind of a clod, who, despite being able to think and react *at lightspeed*, processing information thousands of times more efficiently than any mere human genius, always seems to get outwitted by these sedated tree sloths stumbling around him.

And yeah, same with the Flash. He can travel at lightspeed. Light can zip around the entire planet *eight times in a single second.* He could deal with just about any situation as soon as he becomes aware of it (which could in itself be a limiting factor, since, unlike Superman, he can't hover in orbit and hear bees fart in China, or see a child's appendix bursting in Houston).

At a certain point, the level of power limits the amount of stories that can be told, and lazy writers tend to just have the character fail to use those abilities, so that they can fall back on traditional challenges that would apply to someone without those abilities, rather than craft a story / event that would challenge a person *with* those powers. DC does it. Marvel does it. (The list of X-Men related woes that could be solved with the snap of any one of a dozen of their Omega/time-manipulating/reality-manipulating mutants hands, is... ALL OF THEM. And that would be a boring ass book to read. Wish Girl becomes aware of a problem. Wish Girl snaps her fingers. Problem solved. 22 pages of advertising ensues?)

The solution would be to make characters who *don't* have ridonkulous abilities, and both companies indeed do that. Booster Gold, Vixen, the 'back half' of the Satellite League (the Hawks, Elongated Man, Atom, Red Tornado, Green Arrow, Black Canary), most of the Teen Titans, Outsiders, Birds of Prey, Justice Society (except Specter or Dr. Fate, of course!) or Legion of Super-Heroes lineups. Marvel also has a deep roster of 'not OP' characters like Captain America or Hawkeye, Black Panther or Spider-Man.

Feel like Superman, Flash, etc. are a little hard to craft plausible challenges for, and as a result, are sometimes written like morons who leave some readers frustrated that they don't even seem to bother to use their super-powers? Read about those other characters. There are a ton of them! And not *every* character needs to be written for my personal preferences, so I'm fine with those 'OP' characters existing, to serve *their* fans, even if I'm not buying those particular books.

This is a thing with the other Kryptonians too. Power Girl especially, who is explicitly stated by Mr. Terrific as being a genius, and has to continually make basically the same basic and lame excuse of simply not wanting to be the techie figure as to why she basically never uses that particular ability. Why wouldn't a Kryptonian want to throw their tech at someone they don't like first, rather than risking a physical fight? It's not like Superman has never used his tech, and he's not even supposed to be exceptional for his species. And Supergirl came across no better in that particular scene, (PG has others of a similar nature), being so smart that like PG she instantly understands blueprints for a superscience thingee Mr. Terrific evidently spent days designing, which amazes him and prompts his question to PG about that issue. They need to think these things through a bit more. Audiences and fans will accept almost anything...IF you set it up and have consistent internal logic. It's quite right that Batman and others like him have no business hanging with the real supers, and that Lex should logically present no more threat to any Kryptonian than Ozymandius did to Dr. Manhattan. The speech Manhattan gave to Ozy about his being the worlds' smartest man meant no more to him, (Manhattan), than the world's smartest flatworm pretty much said it all. Ozy only survives because Manhattan just doesn't give a toss about him, dead or alive.

So if you want a normal human character, (by which I mean no unnatural powers, but not that they might not be the best and brightest humans possible), and you want them to interact with say Superman on any meaningful level aside from him saving them, you've got to put some thought into it. Interestingly, the trailers for The Flash seem to show Supergirl actually using more than one of her powers at once. And they and the Snyder stuff do at least capture what such beings fighting would be like.

[Harrynorine]

Something that also doesn't make sense is how the heroes compare to earth base objects. For example, Post crisis Superman strikes this guy on his arm and it doesn't even budge.



But his son hits him with a truck and somehow this guy is pushed back.