Best and worst power changes?

[DrNewGod]

I actually strongly prefer the vulnerability to yellow. I like heroes having some vulnerabilities.

I agree. It'll never happen, but I'd love to see the scale of abilities dialed back a notch or three. Silver-early Bronze Age Marvel was really good at leveraging flaws for dramatic effect and show casing their characters' quick wits in working around them.

[DrNewGod]

Yeah, I know. But even as a kid, naw, didn't like (or find plausable) that one, neither.

I get it. One of its benefits tho is that it makes for a clean set of rules that limit the character. Otherwise, you have to employ harder to convey reasons GL can't pull off a given feat, like shaking his concentration, and it's hard to keep that consistent.

[Phoenixx9]

I get it. One of its benefits tho is that it makes for a clean set of rules that limit the character. Otherwise, you have to employ harder to convey reasons GL can't pull off a given feat, like shaking his concentration, and it's hard to keep that consistent.

I always loved Hal back in the day, but I always saw him as a human with a ultra-powerful weapon.

I never saw him as "all-powerful". He could be hurt, lied to, outmaneuvered, etc, so I never saw him as "all-powerful". I think the writers of those years-gone-by were very talented and help to generate that feeling, the same way that they could do that with Superman at times and like what they did when Jean was Phoenix.

[SuperX]

I like classic superman and electric blue superman

I liked Matrix and Linda danvers

Cir-Els potential was never realized

The kesel kon was a amazing fun and unique character, the Geoff hybrid Conner was more mature and iconic, and losing the TTK and the dependence on them took away a lot from him. They should have gave him either weakened kryptonian powers, some kryptonian powers, or all the kryptonian powers but keeping the TTK in the forefront.

[Agent Z]

Probably not going to be the most popular view here, but IMO the Amazons should pick one area to excel at; either the fantasy arena with swords and magic and all, or the super science one....

The Atlantians have done both. It isn't a binary option.

[Agent Z]

It think it's open to interpretation, but while there are times when Superman wonders whether something can hurt him, he never actually seems to take any damage. I always interpreted the Action # 2 scene as being something that he allowed to happen, because it sure didn't inconvenience him at all, the train thing, I just figured he was never hit by a train before and wasn't sure what would happen. He's still human, after a fashion, after all. He probably thinks of getting hit by a train as something that kills you, internally. There's a great scene in DeHaven's novel "It's Superman!" where a teenage Clark is in shock after being shot for the first time in 1935 or so - because it never occurred to him that being shot wouldn't kill him. I think that's basically a good approach to some of those early apparent discrepancies.

There was a series of strips in 1942 or 1943 where some crooks turn some kind of experimental weapon on Superman, and he doesn't know whether or not it'd be able to hurt him, but doesn't take the chance, preferring to toss it into space where it can safely explode instead. My point though is more like - you know how in like, "Superman the Animated Series," or the first season of "Justice League," Superman would repeatedly get hit with a ray gun, or a lightning bolt, or at one particularly galling point, an electrified manhole cover, and just yell out in pain and go flying or keel over? I think that trend was vaguely based on this misinformed idea that Superman was much weaker in the Golden Age, but he still never did that. He was never actually badly hurt, to the best of my knowledge, in the entire early Golden Age.

It's totally fair to be bored by heroes fighting each other.

I don't like it much myself in fact, but I'm just thinking in terms of a comic environment where that happens all the time anyway, and given that fact, how I'd rather have it go.
Think about the end of Justice League 2017, where Superman is going to have a friendly race against the Flash. We don't get to see how that goes, but it's the first time in a long time where I feel like Superman actually has a chance in that race. Contrast the "Impulse" episode in Smallville, where Clark can only keep up with Bart as long as Bart is running backwards, or the famous "Clark, those races were for charity" panel from the pre-Flashpoint comics. I'm not saying Flash can't be the favorite to win those races, or that Superman should be able to beat him with ease. I'm saying that I like it better when there's a chance for Superman, than where he's completely outclassed, which is the default of how that was written for years. If Superman and Shazam arm wrestle for fun, I want it to be a legitimate question, who would win, and how often one would be able to beat the other.

I don't want Superman to completely outclass everyone all the time, but there needs to be clearly visible reasons why he's usually considered "top dog". Like you said yourself, less popular heroes are given less page time and made to look less competent in team books - and I think Superman has been on the downside of that more often than the upside for much of the last thirty years, on and off.

Superman has faced a lot of problems over the years. Not being at the top of the food chain when it comes to power levels and fights isn't really one of them. Captain Atom, Wonder Woman and Martian Manhunter suffer far more from that to the point that writers remembering what their powers are gets them accused of being OP.

[Masterff]

Kon - now there's one where I'll say his increased powers were a severe detriment. To me they are part and parcel of making him a Clark clone (rather literally, at least 50%), which I dislike a lot. But also his original power of TTK was a lot more unique and fun to read as something different and it enabled some vulnerabilities, which I think is a good idea.

As for Kon, I completely agree. I think that the TTK was a cool and unique element to his character, and I too am less interested in the 50% human Kon than in the "100% human but we tried to fake it" version. It's one of those things I just gotta get used to though, so I'm glad it doesn't bug me that much. I think every version of Kon to make it off the page has followed the "half-Luthor, half-Superman" trend, and so it's pretty ingrained into the character's DNA at this point - no pun intended.

I also feel like 'the Kid' with his tactile TK was way more interesting than yet another Supermanalogue. (And now, with Jon, someone new has come along to drink that milkshake all up, anyway, so he transitioned from 'unique new character with his own niche' to 'something that's going to get taken away from me anyway.' Just a terrible move.)

I'm okay with the idea of half-Kryptonian DNA finally being activated and giving him half-Superman powers *as well as* tactile TK, but it doesn't look like that's a thing either.

Actually I absolutely hated the Kessel Version...

The TTK Power-Set was weak and had no interesting powers.
All the interesting things which he did were actually simulating Superman Powers...
He was more vulnerable,had strength limits and had no long range attack besides the TTK Blast which also wasnt very powerful...

And his enemies were only street level villains which even Batman could defeat...

So I was happy that Johns transformed him and made him more powerful and interesting.

The origin is also MUCH more interesting and better, since it gives him much more possibility to develop..
I LOVE!! the new origin, because there are endless possibilities with him (Hero,Anti-Hero,Villain....), incredible interesting relationships with Lex,Clark...

Johns Conner was PERFECT, finally able to age,better villains,more powerful and cooler power-set.....finally also a villain who is worth to be considered arch-enemy Superboy Prime...

The only 2 things I would keep from Kessels Era are the Leather-Jacket and the attitude with the catch-phrase...

I see TTK only as Extra-Power which can be used like the Kaio-Ken to become stronger,more invulnerable and also form TTK Shields...

Johns ToT Superman was almost absolutely perfect for me: Full Kryptonian Powers,cool attitude,TTK Shield to make him more powerful than Superman...

[Tzigone]

I've seen your posts before Masterff - you love the YJ team (though not actually in YJ) and always want them to be more powerful. More powerful than older heroes, explicitly. The most powerful in the DC universe. God-like powerful. A lot of people do like that, and many are always angling for ways to make their character more powerful than everyone else in appreciation threads. It's just not my thing. I think many characters have been powered up to the point that it's much more difficult to do interesting stories with them without threatening the entire planet. I like vulnerabilities, find the stories more interesting, and frankly find long-range attacks generally less visually interesting to watch than short or mid-range.

[Phoenixx9]

I've seen your posts before Masterff - you love the YJ team (though not actually in YJ) and always want them to be more powerful. More powerful than older heroes, explicitly. The most powerful in the DC universe. God-like powerful. A lot of people do like that, and many are always angling for ways to make their character more powerful than everyone else in appreciation threads. It's just not my thing. I think many characters have been powered up to the point that it's much more difficult to do interesting stories with them without threatening the entire planet. I like vulnerabilities, find the stories more interesting, and frankly find long-range attacks generally less visually interesting to watch than short or mid-range.

Yeah---(sigh)---he does this over-and-over with Power Girl too.

[Sutekh]

I always loved Hal back in the day, but I always saw him as a human with a ultra-powerful weapon.

I never saw him as "all-powerful". He could be hurt, lied to, outmaneuvered, etc, so I never saw him as "all-powerful".

One difference is that he used to have to consciously choose for the ring to do stuff, like put up a shield, so that he could get blindsided or clobbered fairly commonly by something that happened quickly, or came out of his periphery. These days, the ring seems to do that automatically, even if he's not aware of a potential threat, or not facing it, and doesn't require him to put a green barrier between him and an attacker, so it's a bit more of a challenge for the *writer,* to make a challenge for the *character.* (Which tends to reveal the weaker writers, at least, as they just keep throwing bigger and bigger crap at the green shields to overpower them, or just utterly ignore them when they want to have Batgod snatch his ring right off his finger because that's his super-power, to do whatever the writer thinks looks cool, even if it makes no sense.)

[Sutekh]

The most powerful in the DC universe. God-like powerful. A lot of people do like that, and many are always angling for ways to make their character more powerful than everyone else in appreciation threads. It's just not my thing. I think many characters have been powered up to the point that it's much more difficult to do interesting stories with them without threatening the entire planet. I like vulnerabilities, find the stories more interesting,

Ditto. If the most powerful characters ever were automatically the most popular, Batman and Wolverine would not be hugely successful, and crazy powerful characters like the Beyonder or Doctor Manhattan or the Sentry or the Spectre would rule the best selling comic lists.

That said, there's definitely an audience for that sort of feats-driven power fantasy. It's what makes Dragon Ball Z work.

and frankly find long-range attacks generally less visually interesting to watch than short or mid-range.

I picked this sentence out because it's interesting how different styles of character appeal to different people.

People who use brute strength and just punch, punch their way through stuff like the Hulk or Superman, or hover and throw zaps like Lightning Lad or Human Torch, feel kinda same-y, and I tend to prefer more dynamic acrobatic fighters like Nightwing or Nightcrawler, or people who move around while zapping like Monica Rambeau (turns into energy and 'rams' people with her energy body) or spellcasters who are doing something new and dynamic with fluttery hands and different spells in different encounters not just 'flame blast. bunch of tiny flame blasts. cone-shaped flame blast. Big 'splody flame-blast...'

[PCN24454]

Yeah, I know. But even as a kid, naw, didn't like (or find plausable) that one, neither.

Yellow emotional energy would be a nice substitute.

[SuperX]

I feel bad for anyone who thinks the original kesel superboy wasn't interesting and fun as hell. Sure geoffs Conner is great also, and awesome as what the Young Justice and Titans are based off of, but let's not act like kesels SB wasn't a fun read, and his TTK wasnt supposed to make him God level powerful, it was supposed to make him feel different than a kryptonian, and get him out of all the jams he got into.

[K7P5V]

One difference is that he used to have to consciously choose for the ring to do stuff, like put up a shield, so that he could get blindsided or clobbered fairly commonly by something that happened quickly, or came out of his periphery. These days, the ring seems to do that automatically, even if he's not aware of a potential threat, or not facing it, and doesn't require him to put a green barrier between him and an attacker, so it's a bit more of a challenge for the *writer,* to make a challenge for the *character.* (Which tends to reveal the weaker writers, at least, as they just keep throwing bigger and bigger crap at the green shields to overpower them, or just utterly ignore them when they want to have Batgod snatch his ring right off his finger because that's his super-power, to do whatever the writer thinks looks cool, even if it makes no sense.)

I don't know if this counts, since it's from Elseworlds.
But let's not forget the time a green shield/barrier was created around Batman, which allowed him to fight off Hal's attacker:

[j9ac9k]

Upgrade: Black Canary, GL losing the yellow vulnerability, Superman being able to fly instead of just leap tall buildings.
Downgrade: Lightning Lass becoming Light Lass, Alan Scott becoming an energy being or whatever the hell they did to him for a time.