Jab’s Builds! (Lawnmower Man! Samus Aran! Metroids!)

[Jabroniville]

SUPERMAN I (Clark Kent, aka Kal-L)
Created By: Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster
First Appearance: Action Comics #1 (June 1938)
Role: The Big Hero, The Icon, The Originator The Powerhouse, Team Leader, Flying Brick
PL 16 (354)
STRENGTH 20 STAMINA 18 AGILITY 3
FIGHTING 9 DEXTERITY 4
INTELLIGENCE 3 AWARENESS 4 PRESENCE 4

Skills:
Close Combat (Unarmed) 2 (+11)
Deception 7 (+11)
Expertise (History) 3 (+6)
Expertise (Farming) 2 (+5)
Expertise (Reporter/Editor) 10 (+13)
Insight 6 (+10)
Intimidation 3 (+7)
Investigation 5 (+9)
Perception 10 (+14)
Ranged Combat (Heat Vision/Freeze Breath) 4 (+13)
Technology 2 (+5)

Advantages:
Diehard, Evasion, Extraordinary Effort, Fast Grab, Fearless, Great Endurance, Improved Critical (Unarmed), Inspire, Last Stand (Ignores Damage for 1 Round With HP Spent), Move-By Action, Power Attack, Ranged Attack 5, Takedown, Teamwork, Ultimate Strength Check, Ultimate Toughness, Ultimate Will Save, Withstand Damage (Trade Defenses for Toughness)

Powers:
"More Powerful Than a Speeding Locomotive" Power-Lifting 5 (800,000 tons) [5]
"The Man of Steel" Protection 3 (Extras: Impervious 21) [24]
Immunity 11 (Life Support, Aging) [11]

"Heat Beam" Damage 16 (Extras: Area- 60ft. Line +2) (48) -- [53]

• AE: "Heat Vision" Blast 18 (Feats: Extended Reach 2) (38)
• AE: "Freeze Breath" Affliction 15 (Strength; Hindered & Vulnerable/Stunned & Defenseless/Paralyzed) (Extras: Ranged, Extra Condition) (45)
• AE: "Freeze Cone" Affliction 15 (Strength; Hindered & Vulnerable/Stunned & Defenseless/Paralyzed) (Extras: Area- 60ft. Cone, Extra Condition) (45)
• AE: "Ground Pound" Affliction 15 (Strength/Athletics; Hindered & Vulnerable/Stunned & Defenseless) (Extras: Area- 120ft. Burst +3, Extra Condition) (Flaws: Limited Degree, Both Must Be Grounded, Instant Recovery) (30)
• AE: "Super-Breath" Affliction 15 (Strength/Athletics; Hindered & Vulnerable/Stunned & Defenseless) (Extras: Area- 120ft. Cone +2, Extra Condition) (Flaws: Limited Degree, Both Must Be Grounded, Instant Recovery) Linked to Move Object 11 (Extras: Area- 120ft. Cone +2) (Flaws: Touch Range) (38)

"Faster Than a Speeding Bullet"
Flight 18 (500,000 mph) (Feats: Dynamic) (37) -- [41]

• Dynamic AE: Quickness 16 (Feats: Dynamic) (17)
• Dynamic AE: Speed 15 (64,000 mph) (Feats: Dynamic) (16)

Movement 1 (Space Travel 1) [2]

Senses 22 (Extended Vision & Hearing 4, Analytical, Low-Light, Infra, Ultra & Microvision 4, Vision Penetrates Concealment, Ultra-Hearing) [22]

Offense:
Unarmed +11 (+20 Damage, DC 35)
Heat Vision +13 (+18 Ranged Damage, DC 33)
Heat Beam +16 Area (+16 Damage, DC 31)
Freeze Breath +13 (+15 Ranged Affliction, DC 25)
Freeze Cone/Ground Pound +15 Area (+15 Affliction, DC 25)
Initiative +3

Defenses:
Dodge +10 (DC 20), Parry +10 (DC 20), Toughness +21 (+11 Impervious), Fortitude +18, Will +14

Complications:
Secret (Clark Kent)- Very few know his secret identity.
Motivation (Truth, Justice & The American Way)
Responsibility (Metropolis & The Earth)
Power Loss, Weakness (All Powers, Kryptonite Exposure)- The dreaded green rock (which is VERY common at times) will neutralize Superman's powers, AND rapidly poison him.
Power Loss/Vulnerable (Red Sun Radiation)- Earth's Yellow Sun empowers Superman- without it, he will soon lose his powers. Red Sun-based energies will do much more damage to him. This is mostly a later thing, however- initially it was just his physiology that made him Super, and Red Suns had nothing to do with it.
Power Loss (X-Ray Vision)- Kryptonian X-Ray Vision cannot penetrate lead.
Relationship (Lois Lane)- Clark has married his Earth's Lois, and the two have been happily wed for decades.
Responsibility (The Daily Star)- Clark eventually became the Editor-In-Chief of the newspaper where he'd once worked as a regular reporter.
Responsibility (Human Life)- Clark believes deeply that all life is important.

Total: Abilities: 130 / Skills: 54--27 / Advantages: 22 / Powers: 157 / Defenses: 18 (354)

The Real Original Super-Hero:
-The Golden Age Superman is interesting, because like I said, there never really was this MOMENT where one Superman became Silver Age and the other split off to remain a Golden Ager- it was just kind of a thing they did when the League met the Society. Suddenly, the older Superman was now a big-time JSA member (when in the original stories, he'd only appeared for a second- it was felt he wasn't needed in the JSA, since it was basically advertising the adventures of other heroes, and he already had his own solo book), had greying temples, retained an older version of the "S" logo, called himself "Kal-L", and actually settled down and married his Earth's Lois Lane. One of the neat things about Kal-L is that it allowed him to be the "Original" super-hero, since he effectively pre-dated all the other DC heroes in existence- something that was lost in the Post-Crisis era, in which we were left with a loser rip-off like the Crimson Avenger in that role.

-Siegel & Shuster had bandied around ideas for "Superman" for years, basing aspects of him on popular actors (CLARK Gable and KENT Taylor). For six years they struggled to find a publisher, and modified their character to be more heroic- a Samson or Hercules-like figure, fighting against modern troubles like injustice and tyranny. They gave him a costume inspired by the space heroes of Pulp Magazines, as well as Circus Strongmen of the day (in fact, his "tights over contrasting bodysuit" look would have immediately led people to assume he was strong because of this link- a visual shorthand). Metropolis got its name from the Fritz Lang sci-fi film, and was apparently based visually off of Shuster's hometown of Toronto. Some point out that Siegel's father's death by shooting the year before Superman's creation could have had some effect on his power-set. The character was an instant hit, though often went a few issues in a row without being the cover boy (he was instead shown on the upper left corner to advertise it)- eventually, however, every cover of Action Comics was a Superman one.

Superman's Early & Later Years:
-The Golden Age Superman was initially a lower-level hero- "Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound" was seen as the limit of his aerial ability, and he was only fairly super-strong, not able to lug around planets via giant chains. But it's implied there was a pissing-match arms race going on between DC & Fawcett Comics, as Fawcett's Captain Marvel (Billy Batson) was seen doing incredible feats of strength and FLYING, so DC would have Superman slowly upgrade over the years.

-In any case, there being two Supermen allowed DC some freedom to "experiment" with this one, getting him married off and having him age (a similar thing happened to Batman, who married Selina Kyle). His own cousin Kara was introduced as an Earth-Two counterpart to Supergirl and became Power Girl, and he was a major force in The Crisis on Infinite Earths. In the PHENOMENAL ending to that series, he's left as one of the last people standing against the nigh-unkillable Anti-Monitor, soon resorting to THROWING PLANETS INTO HIM. He finally cracks open the monster, and when he feels he's met his end as the Universes merge, Alexander Luthor teleports in and gives him his ultimate reward- as the greatest hero ever, he'd earned a life of peace with his Earth's Lois Lane, and they teleport away, victorious.

-Of course, they'd bring him back in modern times, with Infinite Crisis having him convinced that the Merged Earth was the WRONG one to allow to exist, as it was getting darker and more depressing by the day. He ends up giving his life, beaten to death by the arrogant, psychotic Superboy-Prime, in a pretty controversial move that I still feel was a bit of a... let-down. I mean, this is the freaking ORIGINAL SUPERMAN here, and you're giving him THAT ending?

Superman's Golden Age Might:
-The Golden Age Superman is a PL 16 in my estimation- PL 15 is fine for the "normal" Superman of modern times, but this guy was basically throwing PLANETS at the Anti-Monitor, so he gets to be stronger and tougher. He started off much weaker- leaping an eighth of a mile in his debut and not developing further until later- finally, he becomes the near-equal of Kal-El of Earth-One. Some stories in the '60s and '70s feature him struggling a bit to keep up with the younger guy, however.

[Grenzer]

The cast for this came is every distilled trope of anime girls in the early to mid-1990's, and I like it a lot. Very nostalgic to my old eyes.

Yeah, so many of these characters are rooted in the old-school tropes it's amazing.

Things that spark the nostalgic gleam: The wild hair colors, especially in otherwise normal-looking desigs. The fact that 2-3 characters are just "Schoolgirl" and not like... some fancy variation of it. The "Gymnast in leotard" thing. The "Ruffian" girl (does anime even do the "ruffian schoolgirl" trope anymore?). The 5'6" Super-Giant Athlete Girls. The Bifauxnen girl easily mistaken for a handsome boy, whom girls crush on (again, is that still a thing?). The hard-training but adoring coach. The nosy reporter. The Old-School Japanese True Lady character.

Which other ones have you noticed?

My awareness of Asuka 120% comes from reading articles about in video game magazines like EGM and GamePro back in the day. That was often the only way to learn about titles like this, ones that were never going to get a Western release.

Oh yeah, for sure- I remember a ton of those. EGM had a whole ANIME SECTION in the back, and back when tapes cost $50 for two episodes I often re-read these mags on the shelf just to imagine what it'd be like to actually watch those animes XD.

An interesting note is that Ranma 1/2 had two (of four) fighting games released in the American market, and if we are going by the technical definition of 'Anime Fighter' that franchise beat Asuka 120% by two years*. That would be an worthwhile write-up if we could ever get to it simply because the story of how Ranma took off as this cult hit title among anime fans despite never airing on TV and having an extremely long and inconsistent release schedule is one of the more fascinating successes of the VHS era.
Also, the first Ranma fighting game was totally reskinned to remove all references to what had originally spawned it. If you are an old SNES stalwart, you might remember it as Street Combat, published by Irem. It was very 'Xtreme' and hilarious for all the wrong reasons:

Yeah, that one came up on the Discord a few times- I remember gaming mags were just like "Meh, it's okay" about an SNES one.

The Final Boss in Asuka 120% looks like a tribute to those ojou-sama characters that started showing up in the 1970's. Big hair rolled into ringlets much like Karin Kazuki in Street Fighter and the total queen bee of the school. That's the only major trope I can think of not mentioned in your posts. As for modern anime? The Bifauxnen still shows up from time to time, sukeban (delinquents) do not. Not many male delinquents these days either, so it seems to be a generational shift.* A lot of the other tropes has faded away as well, but not because they were ever discredited, but because elements of them are taken and mixed up with new tropes in new combinations. Very few modern anime girls are 'pure' archetypes like back in the day. I guess it's that search for novelty in a market that has mined the most outrageous of concepts for new story hooks.

I owned Ranma 1/2: Hard Battle and enjoyed it quite a bit. It was my introduction to the franchise and Rumiko Takahashi in general. Very good graphics for 1992 and a music score that was both in the spirit of the anime and memorable. It was also very funny and completely in touch with the source material. Unfortunately, it was not a very good fighting game even by the standards of the time.

Kind of jealous of you still having your old issues of EGM. Those were a great resource for gaming history and just really well designed and edited.

* On the other hand, Tokyo Revengers is a delinquent anime and majorly popular but has the twist of a man jumping back into his teen delinquent self to set right a future that has gone terribly wrong.

[Jabroniville]

The Final Boss in Asuka 120% looks like a tribute to those ojou-sama characters that started showing up in the 1970's. Big hair rolled into ringlets much like Karin Kazuki in Street Fighter and the total queen bee of the school. That's the only major trope I can think of not mentioned in your posts. As for modern anime? The Bifauxnen still shows up from time to time, sukeban (delinquents) do not. Not many male delinquents these days either, so it seems to be a generational shift.* A lot of the other tropes has faded away as well, but not because they were ever discredited, but because elements of them are taken and mixed up with new tropes in new combinations. Very few modern anime girls are 'pure' archetypes like back in the day. I guess it's that search for novelty in a market that has mined the most outrageous of concepts for new story hooks.

Ah, yeah- I recall the "Ojou-Sama" character, but I think even now you see a lot of her.

And I have indeed noticed some characters shake things up a lot more these days- you still get HELLA-Tsunderes these days, "Emotionless Icy Girls" and "Genki Girls" are still popular, but they vary them slightly more once the old tropes got ground into the dirt.

I owned Ranma 1/2: Hard Battle and enjoyed it quite a bit. It was my introduction to the franchise and Rumiko Takahashi in general. Very good graphics for 1992 and a music score that was both in the spirit of the anime and memorable. It was also very funny and completely in touch with the source material. Unfortunately, it was not a very good fighting game even by the standards of the time.

Kind of jealous of you still having your old issues of EGM. Those were a great resource for gaming history and just really well designed and edited.

Alas, I only ever "Rack-Read" EGM- as a kid I only liked Game Players (the epically silly one with a very British sense of humor, despite being from the US) and EGM's reviews annoyed me for some reason (I recall them being very anti-polygon graphics... a take I agreed with more as I aged, lol). So despite loving their anime section, the fact that it was only two pages wasn't enough for me.

Nowadays I wish I could find a bunch for a decent price, but even finishing most of my Game Players collection cost like $120 for a stack I barely looked at.

[greycrusader]

One odd bit about Superman is the character actually had LOADS more enemies and supporting cast members than just the handful most everyone is familiar with, villains, allies, and love interests who lasted years or decades but eventually faded out as new creative teams and editorial took over. Even the early version faced off against foes such as the Ultra-Humanite (before he was an albino gorilla), the Lightning Master, Metalo (just one 'l", a super-scientist in a armored suit), the Silver Age Superman contended with Zha-Vam and the Galactic Golem, early Bronze Age iteration had Amalak, Blackrock, Karb-Brak, Marauder, and Terra-Man on numerous occasions; then there was Lori Lemaris, Prof. Potter, the Kandorians, Gary the Witch Boy, Vartox, and many, many others who came and went over the years. The mainstays, of course, are Lois, Jimmy Olsen, Perry White, Lana Lang, Luthor, and Brainiac. But the mythos is REALLY deep, and even the characters who've been around from nearly the beginning have varied GREATLY over the ages, sometimes being barely recognizable from their earliest incarnations.

All of which is to say...you got a load of work ahead, Jab. All my best.

[Davies]

Complications:
Secret (Clark Kent)- Only Lana Lang and Ma & Pa Kent know his secret in his own century.

Um ... I think this might be mis-pasted from the main Superman entry.

[Ares]

Woo! Superman builds! This should be a lot of fun. So much so that we’ve got a true old fashioned Ares ramble ahead of us. This is your chance to turn away, otherwise I accept no responsibility for what might occur if you continue reading.

Anyway, here we go.


Superman on Echoes

While Superman himself pops up in a lot of threads, you don’t often see his larger supporting cast and villains outside of threads like Jab’s or Thorpocalypse. And it’s not hard to understand why. A lot of the folks here have been doing builds since the mid 2000’s, and usually Superman is one of the first guys newbies build to figure out their own personal scale of things. Superman is often a good measuring stick for other characters because he is generally considered to be the peak of what a powerhouse character can achieve. If you’re stronger than Superman, then you need to have some unique advantage like the Hulk. If you’re faster than Superman, then you’re a Flash-class dedicated speedster. If your energy output is greater, then you’re a dedicated blaster like Captain Atom, Green Lantern or the Silver Surfer. Basically, figuring out Superman is incredibly useful for figuring out where everyone else in your universe scales down to.

As a result, almost everyone has at least one Superman build, and as a result most folks don’t get excited to see Superman builds, because they’ve seen them before. But after more than a decade of builds, it doesn’t hurt to re-examine the source and get a fresh perspective on the Man of Steel.


Superman and the Fans

Superman is also kind of polarizing to people. Within geek circles I find it’s rare to find someone who is just indifferent to Superman, as he seems to spark a lot of joy or an equal amount of hate. The fans love him as a moral paragon, a powerhouse, a father figure and the kind of inspirational hero we all need. The haters will say he’s boring, bland, overpowered and hard to write.

And then there’s the fanboys. I’ll get to the fanboys.


Superman and Me

Myself? I love Superman. He isn’t my favorite hero (I obviously have a different flying moral paragon as my favorite character), but I’ve collected Superman comics for a long time and I feel that, at his best, his stories are a wonderful blend of action, adventure and humanity. People that focus on Superman’s alien nature miss the important thing, which is what defines Superman is humanity. He has all of this power but he chooses to use it to help others and to be extremely humble in who he is, all because his parents raised him right and instilled in him good, wholesome values. He’s someone with immense power who doesn’t see himself as any better than any other human being, which is why there’s no problem too small for him to want to help. The irony of Superman and Lex Luthor’s relationship is that Lex is a mortal man who thinks he’s better than everyone else, while Superman is a god who sees himself as just another guy.

While his powers allow for the adventures he has, what makes Superman who he is at his core is his compassion, empathy, courage, humility and his dedication to values like Truth, Justice and the American Way.

All that said, Jab . . . misrepresented a few things in his post in my opinion, which I want to address.


Superman’s Daddies

It’s not wrong to say that Superman is the most important superhero, in the sense that he created the modern superhero genre and the notion of what people consider a superhero. There’s a reason why whenever anyone creates a ‘generic superhero’ it’s always someone with Superman’s costume, maybe with gloves and a mask, and either no chest symbol or a different one.

However, I think it’s really disingenuous to say that the characters that contributed to Superman’s creation don’t matter. Both Hugo Danner (Gladiator) and John Carter (A Princess of Mars) not only laid the groundwork for Superman’s abilities (superstrength, durability, leaping, super senses) but John also supplied the origin and explanation for said abilities as an alien from another world on a planet with weaker gravity. Characters like the Phantom were wearing spandex costumes under street clothes, and other pulp heroes like the Shadow and the Spider were fighting crime while maintaining a secret identity. Doc Savage not only supplied Superman with a few names (as he was both CLARK Savage Jr. and known as THE MAN OF BRONZE), but also things like an arctic base (which was literally called The Fortress of Solitude in Doc’s own books), an example of an extremely moral paragon, and the kind of science adventures Superman would get up to.

In short, Superman owes a lot to the characters that came before him, which Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were inspired by and combined in truly unique way at the time. If any one of those elements don’t exist we maybe don’t get Superman, and each of those characters are important in their own right (save maybe poor Hugo Danner). John Carter of Mars is one of the most influential sci-fi heroes of all time, inspiring the likes of Superman, Flash Gordon and Star Wars. The Phantom is incredibly popular world wide and you can still read stories of him to this day. Doc Savage and the Shadow are considered the icons of the pulp era and you can still find their stories and people inspired by them these days.

I’m not knocking Superman (and only knocking Jab a little), but it’s important to give credit where it’s due.


Superman’s Power

As anyone who’s been on here for any length of time knows, I’m a huge Captain Marvel fan, and that’s influenced a lot of my own takes on various things. And given the rivalry that’s existed between Superman and Captain Marvel (in comics and in real life) you’d probably expect me to not like Superman. And again, I like Superman a lot as a character. I like guys like Cap and Spider-Man more, but Superman is up there with guys like Batman and Captain America for characters I enjoy a lot.

So then why do I get “bent out of shape” when folks put Superman as being higher than Captain Marvel in terms of strength, durability, speed, power, capability, etc?

To start, it’s because it’s something that has never really happened in the comics. Every time Superman and Cap have encountered each other in the comics, and especially when they fought, they’ve been portrayed as physical equals. This includes things like the “test characters” DC used in the 70s to see how Cap would do in DC, such as Justice League of America #103 (1973) where the guy in the possessed Captain Marvel costume was as strong as Superman, or Superman #276 (1974) when “Captain Thunder” (an obvious Cap stand in) did the same. From the start the two were portrayed as equals, so much so that in All New Collectors Edition Superman vs Shazam (1978) writer Gerry Conway actually invented a weakness for Cap that appeared only in that issue to let Superman win the fight, otherwise it could have conceivably gone on forever. And it was a trend that basically continued until 2011 when the DCU got rebooted and things went to Hell (though things hadn’t been going well for the Marvel Family for a while by that point).

Basically, anytime Cap and Superman were in the same book, they were peers and physical equals, and it was a consistent thing for decades. To me it wasn’t really up for debate, it was a fact that had been established over and over and over again.

Now, to be clear, I don’t want Captain Marvel to be “the most powerful hero ever”. I’ve never view him that way. But I think what sets me apart from a lot of Superman fans is that I don’t view Superman as being “the most powerful hero” either. Part of it might have been my being a Captain Marvel fan, but I also read the Legion of Superheroes a lot growing up as well, and there you regularly had at least 2 or 3 other people on the team who were just as powerful as Superboy.

Maybe it was because I read both Marvel and DC growing up, but I never saw Superman as being apart from his fellow heroes. He defined what a “top tier” hero was to me, and other top tier heroes like Cap, Thor, the Hulk, Green Lantern, the Silver Surfer, Icon, Orion, Hercules, Captain Atom, these guys were all as powerful as Superman in one way or another. I didn’t see Superman having a radical strength advantage over Thor (if it existed it was minor at best), while I could see the Hulk getting mad enough to surpass Superman strength wise, but only enough that Superman still had a chance to win if he used his abilities well.

So I never really saw Superman as “the most powerful hero of all time” because there were so many other heroes that could make a strong case for being on his level. For me, Superman wasn’t “above” top tier heroes, he defined what a top tier hero was, and thus other top tier heroes were on his level.

I get that Superman is vital to the comics industry, but I don’t believe that that translates into him needing to be more powerful than everyone else.

Which is where the fanboys come in.


The Fanboys

Like Jab mentioned, Superman fanboys can be . . . extreme. To them, it’s obvious that Superman isn’t just powerful, he’s the most powerful and important character of all time, and everyone else needs to acknowledge it. It’s Superman’s world, and every other hero is just living in it.

Th problem? Several of these fanboys have actually managed to work at DC and make their obsessions some flavors of canon. And it’s really obvious when a Superman fanboy gets control of the character. This is how you get things like Jeph Loeb having Superman beat up half the DCU, Supergirl beat up the other half, and then have Superman beat up Supergirl to show that Superman could have beat them up as well. This is how you get Geoff Johns not once but TWICE having Superman be called the literal center of existence of the DC Multiverse. It’s how you get Grant Morrison re-framing every other major powerhouse hero in DC as the “Supermen of the Multiverse” and have Superman sing Darkseid out of existence.

I can’t imagine anything that does more long-term damage to a shared universe than having one character be the center of everything. Again, I LIKE SUPERMAN. I think he’s a fantastic character. But I think having the universe revolve around him is detrimental to the DCU as a whole. He might set the overall tone for the kind of heroism of DC (the way Spider-Man does Marvel) but that doesn’t mean Superman is the literal center of the universe IN-UNIVERSE.

Basically, these kind of writers treat writing Superman as a status symbol and as a vehicle for their power fantasy. Whether it’s writing about how changing Superman changes the DCU (like in Doomsday Clock) or having Superman be the one last hope in major events (like Our Worlds At War or Final Crisis), it’s less about Superman as a character and the idea of writing a character so important to the concept of superheroes. It’s this odd situation where they hold Superman up as this idol, saying how important he is while cheapening the concept of him. Instead of telling an actual story, they just use him as a way to exert power over the DCU as a whole and expect to be praised for it.

[Ares]

DCAU Superman

This wasn’t quite the case in the DCAU, though we got examples like it later on. Like Jab, I wasn’t a huge fan of Superman: TAS. It just didn’t have the same kind of magic Batman: TAS, and I think it was because Paul Dini wasn’t as involved with this show as he was Batman’s despite writing several Superman episodes. A big problem was that the writers mentioned intentionally wanting to ‘subvert’ ideas people had about Superman. They wanted to make him more of a mysterious presence, less warm, less ‘corny’, etc. Basically, they removed a lot of the best elements that made Superman who he was.

This became an issue when Clark moved to the Justice League and without a lot of his core defining traits, he wound up not having much of a personality. The writers also struggled to find a balance of making Superman powerful, but not so powerful that he’d overshadowed the team. Unfortunately, they undershot the mark and this left some fans feeling that Superman was being portrayed as a weakling to make the other heroes look better. It also didn’t help that Hawkgirl was a creator’s pet, and their efforts to justify her existence led to her looking overpowered compared to some Leaguers.

Then Season 2 rolled around and the show overcompensated . . . by a lot. For one thing, they decided to make Superman stand out more by amplifying aspects of his personality. Unfortunately, since Flash was the “goofball with a heart”, they decided to focus on some of his TAS personality traits and make him . . . well, kind of a jerk. That’s a bit unfair, but he became much more confrontational, quicker to anger, and they completely dropped all pretense of him being a boy scout. In fact, when Flash brings it up, he smugly comments on how he never made it to his first merit badge. It was a point of pride for the show that this Superman was not any kind of friendly father figure, but was instead a more aggressive man of action with a temper.

Power wise, while some lip service was paid to folks like J’onn and Grundy being ‘as strong’ as Superman, it definitely wasn’t shown. Nowhere was this more clear than his rematch with Darkseid. In Superman: TAS, Darkseid had mind-controlled Superman, used him to invade Earth, injured Supergirl, and left Superman’s reputation in tatters. At the height of his anger and outrage, Superman confronts Darkseid and . . . got the shit kicked out of him. Literally, Darkseid had him on the defensive for most of the fight, he physically overpowers Superman multiple times, and it’s made clear that Clark just isn’t capable of beating Darkseid one-on-one. He’s only able to win by covering Darkseid’s eyes at the last second in a moment of desperation, forcing the beams back into Darkseid’s BRAIN and nearly killing him.

In the rematch, after Darkseid has just finished kicking the crap out of Orion (someone who should be on Superman’s level), Clark just shows up and they fight as basically equals. Clark starts off with an advantage, Darkseid gains the edge, Superman recaptures the edge and then just flat out beats Darkseid, no strings attached.

Seriously, compare Fight 1 against Fight 2. It’s a difference of night and day despite there being no explanation offered to why Superman can suddenly just straight up defeat Darkseid. He just can now.

It got even more pronounced in JLU, especially with episodes like “For the Man Who has Everything” and Superman’s fights with Captains Marvel and Atom. “For the Man Who has Everything” can somewhat be forgiven, since it’s an adaptation of a comic and at least the JLU team had Wonder Woman put up more of a fight against Mongul. Still, we see Wonder Woman literally bruise her hands on Mongul’s face, and Mongul makes it clear Superman was the only hero in the League he was worried about. And then Superman shows up and beats Mongul’s face to jelly while never taking any visible damage of his own.

The fight with Captain Marvel similarly had Superman as the dominant force in the fight. It wasn’t really a back and forth fight where each one had an even showing, demonstrated by things like Superman beating Cap through a building one wall at a time, and then delivering this combo on Cap once they get out of the building. Cap managed a couple of retaliatory strikes during that fight through the building, but he’s never able to stop Superman from forcing him backwards repeatedly, until Superman combos him into another building. Cap responds with a combo of his own, but Superman pops right back and combos Cap again, knocks him into a building. And instead of getting right up immediately, Cap gets up and holds his head before Superman plows him straight through the building. Cap responds by punching Superman across the street into a bank vault, and Superman just looks up without any hint of hesitation or pause. Cap is up, but instead of flying back over to continue the fight, he actually walks over with his shoulders slumped, indicating that he’s tired and worn down. Superman meanwhile just rips the bank vault out, flys out and beats Cap with it. When Cap shows up again, his face is bruised, his outfit is torn and he’s holding one arm like it’s injured. And then Superman beats him into the ground again, only for Cap to hit Superman with the magic lightning and Clark gets his first visible injury during the fight. Then Superman eventually reverses the grab, Cap gets turned back into Billy, and the fight is over.

I’ll say that the JLU team implied that Cap and Supes were even-ish power wise. Despite the punishment he took, Superman really couldn’t put Cap down until he hit Cap with his own lightning. Before that, however bad Superman beat him down, Cap just kept getting back up. And Cap was shown that his punches could affect Superman as much, knocking him back and comboing Superman the same way Superman comboed him.

The problem is a matter of presentation. Until he’s hit with the magic lightning, Superman never takes any visible injuries, while Cap gets visibly bruised just by the physical fight. Superman is never shown getting tired or having any issue continuing the fight, whereas that isn’t true for Cap. Cap gets knocked onto a rooftop and instead of getting right back into the fight, he’s holding his head and just sitting there for Superman to pound him through a building. And once he punches Superman into the bank vault, instead of flying over to keep the fight going, Cap slowly walks over, again implying that he’s more tired and injured than Superman, who simply rips the vault out and is flying no problem.

Basically, despite that Cap could hit as hard as Superman and that he wouldn’t stay down, they still make Superman look superior by getting more hits in and never looking injured or tired the way Cap did.

Jab (somewhat infuriatingly) likes to act like I’m doing some frame-by-frame analysis of the fight, but I’m not doing anything but watching what’s happening on screen and PAYING ATTENTION. I can see Superman punching Cap through a building and clearly see him getting more hits in, and I can do the easy math of counting Superman getting two beatdown combos on Cap compared to the single combo Cap manages on Clark.

Again compare the The Clash fight with Cap and Clark’s fight in Superman/Batman: Public Enemies. I’m not saying that fight is BETTER per say (Cap turning back into Billy after the missile is just weird, for one example) but it’s a much more even back and forth with Cap actually getting a momentary upperhand with the elbowsmash and the uppercut, yet it was clear both Cap and Clark were still in the fight.

The fight with Captain Atom was, in some ways, even worse than Captain Marvel’s fight. Atom is someone who, again, could conceivably go toe-to-toe with Superman. And in this fight, Atom is actually using red solar energy on Superman while in a location that leaves Superman without exposure to normal sunlight. Given that Justice League: Starcrossed showed that red solar radiation can quickly bring Superman down to normal and have it take Clark a while to get back up to full strength, there really is no explaining Atom’s performance in that fight. And based on Atom’s dialogue in that episode, we can dismiss the fan theory of Captain Atom holding back and letting Superman win while still following orders.

They really should have left the red sun radiation out of the equation and just had Captain Atom fight using energy charged punches and normal energy blasts. Then if Superman wins a close fight it’s more understandable. The problem again being that despite the back and forth, it isn’t really a close fight. By the end of it, Superman is again not showing any signs of exhaustion, nor does he have any visible injuries. Atom meanwhile is showing visible damage and is clearly exhausted.

Call me crazy, but if two people have a fight, and one person ends the fight without any visible injuries and isn’t even breathing hard while the other guy is visibly hurt, exhausted and can only put up a mild offense before the KO punch, then it isn’t exactly rocket science to say who came out looking overwhelmingly superior.

It’s especially noticeable when the series shows us fights where Superman does get tired and exhausted. Take Superman’s fights with Chaos Solomon Grundy or Doomsday. In both instances we see a Superman who can get tired, get injured, etc. But in both cases, these were villains, and one in particular was there to again to build up Hawkgirl. Meanwhile, Doomsday got the Darkseid treatment of being taken out by a last minute desperation move.

The Doomsday fight in particular is kind of telling, because basically, Doomsday treats Superman the way Superman treats Captains Marvel and Atom. Despite the majority of the fight being a back and forth, by the end Doomsday is neither visibly injured or even breathing hard while Superman is exhausted and visibly injured. Compare with how Superman and Captain Marvel were (pre-Shazam lightning) and how Clark and Captain Atom were by the end of their fight. The writers literally had Clark Doomsday two heroes that by all rights should have been able to fight him to a standstill. Except that isn’t accurate because Clark still got to technically defeat Doomsday.


The World of Cardboard Speech

Which brings me to the World of Cardboard Speech. To me, this speech embodies everything wrong with the DCAU’s Superman.

First off, it has Superman make a distinction between himself and his teammates. Whereas they will “never give up”, his problem is that he “has to hold back”. The writing team is flat out stating that Superman, by his own admission, is far above his teammates. They face odds and will not give up despite the risk to himself. He faces odds and has to worry about how much power to use to save the day. In Clark’s mind, the gulf between him and his teammates is that vast.

Secondly, it has Clark treat his powers like a burden. He talks about how fragile the world is and how he needs to use constant care to not accidentally hurt someone. This is again more “Marvel-izing” of Superman where it’s treated like Clark is in eternal worry of hurting people around him. It basically creates a gulf between Clark and, not just his teammates, but the entire world. Clark is not supposed to be living in constant fear that his casual touch might break someone’s arm.

Thirdly, Jab is just flat out wrong here. Superman’s comment about how “But you can take it, can’t you big man?” and his follow up of “Show you just how powerful I really am” is outright stating that this is the first time Darkseid, possibly anyone, has felt Superman’s full power. That it’s a “rare opportunity” does not, in fact, mean that it’s happened before. In fact, the way Superman talks about it all but states that this is Superman finally not holding back at all for the first time.

No, it doesn’t make any sense, but that’s what the scene is literally saying. Despite Amazo being more powerful, despite Chaos Grundy and Doomsday beating him more brutally, this speech makes it clear that this version of Darkseid has pushed Superman to the point where he won’t hold back anymore.

And sure, Darkseid technically wins this fight. By pulling a brand new power completely out of his ass to deus ex machina a win, and then break out a kryptonite knife to finish Superman off.

Superman stops holding back, punches Darkseid twice and Darkseid literally is granted a new power by the writers to end the fight and maintain drama.

That is why the World of Cardboard Speech sucks. It emphasizes all of the worst elements of JL/JLU. His arrogance, his self-perception of his own power, and the fact that he can always physically dominate anyone he’s fighting against simply by trying harder. Only the fact that he’s essentially psychologically crippled himself with his constant need to hold back allows there to be any drama in the show.

The whole “Superman was holding back” bit was a concept Jeph Loeb pushed hard as a way to retcon Superman’s previously weak moments, and JL/JLU going that route in the last episode was a major disappointment. Imagine if, instead of Superman suddenly physically dominating Darkseid to the point that he needed literal Writer Intervention to win, Superman actually just . . . needed help? Imagine if, in a team show, the original seven Justice Leaguers had shown up and fought Darkseid as a team, using actual tactics to keep Darkseid at bay until Lex and Metron showed up? Sure, you don’t get to have Superman admit how he could have ended a lot of fights more quickly if he’d just tried harder, but you do get to see how the team has grown, see them all in action together and get a final send off as a group.

Imagine if, instead of Superman even if the fights with Captains Marvel and Atom ended the same way that the end of the fights had Superman injured and exhausted, indicating that the other heroes might have actually won? Imagine being worried that Superman could lose a fight to someone who isn’t Doomsday (who is just a stronger version of himself), Chaos Grundy (who existed to make Hawkgirl look good) or Amazo (who had literal planet moving godlike power)?

JL / JLU Superman just rubs me the wrong way on a lot of levels, from his personality to the writers indulging in some of the worst of the power geekery from the comics. And honestly, having re-watched JL / JLU as part of my Kevin Conroy tribute, it honestly doesn’t hold up as well as Batman:TAS. It had some solid moments, I’m not saying all of it was bad . . . but there were definitely bad elements to it. The CADMUS arc was really the highlight of the show, and even that had its issues.

Anyway, I’ve rambled far too long about this at this point, so I’ll just summarize that I love Superman. I just hate what some of his fans and creators do to the guy.

[Jabroniville]

SUPERMAN II (Clark Kent, aka Kal-El)- Silver Age Version
Created By: Jerry Siegel & Joe Schuster
First Appearance: Action Comics #1 (June 1938)
Role: The Inspiration, Super-Heavyweight Fighter, Flying Brick
PL 17 (408)
STRENGTH 22 STAMINA 19 AGILITY 4
FIGHTING 11 DEXTERITY 4
INTELLIGENCE 8 AWARENESS 5 PRESENCE 5

Skills:
Aerobatics 4 (+8)
Close Combat (Unarmed) 1 (+12)
Deception 7 (+12)
Expertise (Space Hero) 2 (+10)
Expertise (Farming) 2 (+10)
Expertise (Reporter/Anchorman) 4 (+12)
Expertise (Science) 8 (+16)
Insight 6 (+11)
Intimidation 2 (+7)
Investigation 3 (+8)
Perception 10 (+15)
Persuasion 5 (+10)
Ranged Combat (Heat Vision/Freeze Breath) 2 (+14)
Technology 8 (+16)

Advantages:
Accurate Attack, Diehard, Eidetic Memory, Evasion, Extraordinary Effort, Fast Grab, Fearless, Great Endurance, Improved Critical (Unarmed) 3, Improved Initiative 2, Inspire, Interpose, Jack-Of-All-Trades, Last Stand (Ignores Damage for 1 Round With HP Spent), Move-By Action, Power Attack, Ranged Attack 5, Takedown, Teamwork, Ultimate Strength Check, Ultimate Toughness, Ultimate Will Save, Withstand Damage (Trade Defenses for Toughness)

Powers:
"More Powerful Than a Speeding Locomotive" Power-Lifting 5 (3,200,000 tons) [5]
"The Man of Steel" Protection 4 (Extras: Impervious 23) [27]
Immunity 11 (Life Support, Aging) [11]

"Heat Beam" Damage 17 (Extras: Area- 60ft. Line +2) (51) -- [58]

• AE: "Heat Vision" Blast 18 (Feats: Extended Range 2) (Extras: Penetrating 10) (48)
• AE: "Freeze Breath" Affliction 16 (Strength; Hindered & Vulnerable/Stunned & Defenseless/Paralyzed) (Extras: Ranged, Extra Condition) (48)
• AE: "Freeze Cone" Affliction 16 (Strength; Hindered & Vulnerable/Stunned & Defenseless/Paralyzed) (Extras: Area- 60ft. Cone, Extra Condition) (48)
• AE: "Ground Pound" Affliction 16 (Strength/Athletics; Hindered & Vulnerable/Stunned & Defenseless) (Extras: Area- 120ft. Burst +3, Extra Condition) (Flaws: Limited Degree, Both Must Be Grounded, Instant Recovery) (31)
• AE: "Super-Breath" Affliction 16 (Strength/Athletics; Hindered & Vulnerable/Stunned & Defenseless) (Extras: Area- 120ft. Cone +2, Extra Condition) (Flaws: Limited Degree, Both Must Be Grounded, Instant Recovery) Linked to Move Object 11 (Extras: Area- 120ft. Cone +2) (Flaws: Touch Range) (39)
• AE: "Super-Ventriloquism" Illusion (Hearing) 5 (Flaws: Limited to Things He Can Actually Say, But In A Different Area) (2.5)
• AE: "Super-Hypnosis" Affliction 8 (Will; Entranced/Compelled/Controlled) (Extras: Perception-Ranged +2) (Flaws: Vision-Dependent) (16)

"Faster Than a Speeding Bullet"
Flight 20 (2,00,000 mph) (Feats: Dynamic) (41) -- [45]

• Dynamic AE: Quickness 16 (Feats: Dynamic) (17)
• Dynamic AE: Speed 15 (64,000 mph) (Feats: Dynamic) (16)

Movement 3 (Space Travel 1, Time Travel 2) [6]

Senses 22 (Extended Vision & Hearing 4, Analytical, Low-Light, Infra, Ultra & Microvision 4, Vision Penetrates Concealment, Ultra-Hearing) [22]

Offense:
Unarmed +12 (+22 Damage, DC 37)
Heat Vision +14 (+18 Ranged Damage, DC 33)
Heat Beam +15 Area (+15 Damage, DC 30)
Freeze Breath +11 (+14 Ranged Affliction, DC 24)
Freeze Cone/Ground Pound +14 Area (+14 Affliction, DC 24)
Initiative +3

Defenses:
Dodge +11 (DC 21), Parry +11 (DC 21), Toughness +23 (+12 Impervious), Fortitude +19, Will +14

Complications:
Secret (Clark Kent)- Only Lana Lang and Ma & Pa Kent know his secret.
Motivation (Truth, Justice & The American Way)
Power Loss/Vulnerable (Kryptonite)- Superman will lose all of his powers, and soon begin to die, if exposed to Kryptonite, the element of his dead homeworld.
Power Loss/Vulnerable (Magic)- Magic has a vague effect on Superman- sometimes he's so vulnerable to it that a werewolf or something can hurt him- at other times, it just hurts a bit more than regular attacks would.
Power Loss/Vulnerable (Red Sun Radiation)- Earth's Yellow Sun empowers Superman- without it, he will soon lose his powers. Red Sun-based energies will do much more damage to him. Typically, Brainiac-5 will give him some kind of protection against this weakness.
Power Loss (X-Ray Vision)- Kryptonian X-Ray Vision cannot penetrate lead.
Relationship (Lois Lane)- Clark is in love with Lois, but still has to keep his secret from her.
Responsibility (The Top Hero of Earth)- Clark is the most well-known and well-respected hero on Earth. He always has to deal with the fact that everybody looks up to him.
Enemy (Lex Luthor, Brainiac, Bizarro, Toyman, etc.)- Superman's Rogues Gallery contains some high-level threats, as well as a lot of silly nuisances.
Responsibility (Human Life)- Clark believes deeply that all life is important.

Total: Abilities: 156 / Skills: 64--32 / Advantages: 30 / Powers: 174 / Defenses: 16 (408)

-At some point, Superman just became the "Earth-One" version. This happened some time during the 1950s, but he was the one who used to be Superboy (who debuted in 1945), had a cousin named Supergirl (1958), etc. Mort Weisinger oversaw a ton of changes to the character by this point, giving us creations like Brainiac and Bizarro as well, and would set up a base of operations in the Arctic called the "Fortress of Solitude", where he'd go to either get away from people, or bring his friends to hang out and see his various wonders collected in his career.

-Despite the early '60s being a Superman-heavy era amongst the top-sellers, he started faltering halfway through the decade, and gave up the status as DC's #1 hero to Batman. This version would get a ton of silly "one-off" powers, but was largely "set" by the mid-1970s or so with the powers we'd recognize today. He was INSANELY powerful, to the point where most villains never even bothered trying to hurt him if they were smart, and so there was a lot of outsmarting, Superdickery and more. Weisinger gave way to Julius Schwartz by the Bronze Age, and Supes was made more "modern and realistic". By 1978, the Superman film had hit huge, impressing pretty much everybody with its plot, special effects and acting. In a funny, now-forgotten bit, the "Daily Planet" was turned into a TV show, with Clark now being an anchorman in Metropolis (along with Lana Lang)- a "modern" to fix the fact that EVEN THEN the whole "adventuring reporter" thing was kind of an old-fashioned anachronism. Almost every other version ignores this change, despite the whole "News Broadcast" thing indeed being a far bigger deal.

-Superman's Power Level could be anywhere between PL 14 and PL 30 based off of Silver Age stories- books exist featuring him carrying a DOZEN PLANETS ATTACHED BY A CHAIN. He once moved through dimensions by going so fast, and can travel through time almost casually. He's a Super-Genius, having not only built his own Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic, but a line of "Superman Robots". He's so far above every other hero on the planet that any affiliation basically becoming "Superman and Friends".

[Sidney369]

Siegel and Shuster recycled the name Superman from an earlier creation of theirs https://pdsh.fandom.com/wiki/Superman?so=search

And speaking of his power level, there was a Superboy story where he easily changed the orbit of a planet with his super-breath.

[Jabroniville]

SUPERMAN II (Clark Kent, aka Kal-El)- John Byrne Revamp
Created By: Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster
First Appearance: Action Comics #1 (June 1938)
Role: The Big Hero, The Icon, The Originator The Powerhouse, Team Leader, Flying Brick
PL 14 (249)
STRENGTH 17 STAMINA 16 AGILITY 3
FIGHTING 10 DEXTERITY 4
INTELLIGENCE 3 AWARENESS 4 PRESENCE 4

Skills:
Aerobatics 4 (+7)
Close Combat (Unarmed) 1 (+11)
Deception 7 (+11)
Expertise (Farming) 2 (+5)
Expertise (Reporter) 7 (+10)
Insight 4 (+8)
Intimidation 2 (+6)
Investigation 5 (+9)
Perception 10 (+14)
Ranged Combat (Heat Vision/Freeze Breath) 4 (+11)
Technology 3 (+6)

Advantages:
Close Attack, Diehard, Evasion, Fast Grab, Fearless, Great Endurance, Improved Critical (Unarmed), Inspire, Interpose, Last Stand (Ignores Damage for 1 Round With HP Spent), Move-By Action, Power Attack, Ranged Attack 5, Takedown, Teamwork, Ultimate Strength Check, Ultimate Toughness, Ultimate Will Save

Powers:
"More Powerful Than a Speeding Locomotive" Power-Lifting 0 (6,000 tons) [0]
"The Man of Steel" Protection 1 (Extras: Impervious 17) [18]
Immunity 6 (Poison, Aging, Heat, Cold, Pressure, Vaccum) [6]

"Heat Beam" Damage 13 (Extras: Area- 60ft. Line +2) (39) -- [44]

• AE: "Heat Vision" Blast 18 (Feats: Extended Range) (37)
• AE: "Freeze Breath" Affliction 12 (Strength; Hindered & Vulnerable/Stunned & Defenseless/Paralyzed) (Extras: Ranged, Extra Condition) (36)
• AE: "Freeze Cone" Affliction 12 (Strength; Hindered & Vulnerable/Stunned & Defenseless/Paralyzed) (Extras: Area- 60ft. Cone, Extra Condition) (36)
• AE: "Ground Pound" Affliction 14 (Strength/Athletics; Hindered & Vulnerable/Stunned & Defenseless) (Extras: Area- 120ft. Burst +3, Extra Condition) (Flaws: Limited Degree, Both Must Be Grounded, Instant Recovery) (28)
• AE: "Super-Breath" Affliction 13 (Strength/Athletics; Hindered & Vulnerable/Stunned & Defenseless) (Extras: Area- 120ft. Cone +2, Extra Condition) (Flaws: Limited Degree, Both Must Be Grounded, Instant Recovery) Linked to Move Object 11 (Extras: Area- 60ft. Cone +2) (Flaws: Touch Range) (25)

"Faster Than a Speeding Bullet"
Flight 16 (125,000 mph) (Feats: Dynamic) (33) -- [37]

• Dynamic AE: Quickness 10 (Feats: Dynamic) (11)
• Dynamic AE: Speed 10 (2,000 mph) (Feats: Dynamic) (11)

Movement 1 (Space Travel 1) [2]

Senses 15 (Extended Vision & Hearing 2, Infra, Ultra & Microvision 4, Vision Penetrates Concealment, Ultra-Hearing) [15]

Offense:
Unarmed +11 (+17 Damage, DC 32)
Heat Vision +11 (+16 Ranged Damage, DC 31)
Heat Beam +13 Area (+13 Damage, DC 28)
Freeze Breath +11 (+12 Ranged Affliction, DC 22)
Freeze Cone/Ground Pound +12-14 Area (+12 Affliction, DC 22-24)
Initiative +3

Defenses:
Dodge +9 (DC 19), Parry +10 (DC 20), Toughness +17 (+11 Impervious), Fortitude +16, Will +12

Complications:
Secret (Clark Kent)- Only Lana Lang and Ma & Pa Kent know his secret.
Motivation (Truth, Justice & The American Way)
Responsibility (Metropolis & The Earth)
Power Loss, Weakness (All Powers, Kryptonite Exposure)- The dreaded green rock (which is VERY common at times) will neutralize Superman's powers, AND rapidly poison him.
Power Loss/Vulnerable (Red Sun Radiation)- Earth's Yellow Sun empowers Superman- without it, he will soon lose his powers. Red Sun-based energies will do much more damage to him. This is mostly a later thing, however- initially it was just his physiology that made him Super, and Red Suns had nothing to do with it.
Power Loss/Vulnerable (Magic)- Magic has a vague effect on Superman- sometimes he's so vulnerable to it that a werewolf or something can hurt him- at other times, it just hurts a bit more than regular attacks would.
Power Loss (X-Ray Vision)- Kryptonian X-Ray Vision cannot penetrate lead.
Relationship (Lois Lane)- Clark has strong feelings for Lois, who is a Strong Go-Getting Eighties Woman.
Responsibility (Human Life)- Clark believes deeply that all life is important.

Total: Abilities: 122 / Skills: 50--25 / Advantages: 21 / Powers: 67 / Defenses: 14 (249)

-This is the pared-down, more-reasonable, "Marvel-Ized" Superman as envisioned by John Byrne when he got to take over the Man Of Steel's books. This was a HUGE reboot, done with a ton of effort on Byrne's part, but being Byrne, he had a ton of issues. He would be angered over DC's printing his version of the character... but only using the older version in advertisements and non-comic books, meaning that his version was ignored in things like coloring books, ads for things, etc.- "less official". He dropped the Superboy aspect (because it annoyed him logic-wise when he would face death as a kid, since we KNEW FOR A FACT he grew up to become Superman), and claims that the Editors didn't care about his Legion of Super-Heroes links, but then called him months later complaining about it. He removed all of the old Krypton, and basically turned them into a rather emotionless, Vulcan-like race, and he was sent away from Krypton as a womb-y matrix of life instead of a baby. This was all very... 1980s, and took away a lot of the whimsy and quaint-ness of the old stories, which was DELIBERATE, mind you, but in the decades following comics has become a lot more self-referential and admires the whimsy a lot more, and so retroactively these were deemed to be mistakes and largely undone by later writers.

-It was popular for the time (a Fine Arts teacher of mine in College, who shared a class with Byrne and a young woman named Kitty Pryde, made mention of this run as something that made him a TON of money), but as soon as Byrne would leave, cracks would form. Other writers started amping up the power levels since they, y'know, were Superman fans and SUPES IS ALWAYS ABOUT FEATS, YO. Eventually they'd even scratch away Byrne's version of Krypton, leaving us with the Silver Age version. Ultimately, this character existed for like 6-7 years and is now barely recognizable... though this version feels a lot more like the vulnerable Superman of Superman: The Animated Series, which came out a decade later.

-This version of Superman is the lowest-level outside of the cartoons (which feature a mostly PL 12-ish dude), but at PL 14, he's still a match for almost any Marvel hero. He would tie with Thor or The Hulk, that's for certain.

[Jabroniville]

All that said, Jab . . . misrepresented a few things in his post in my opinion, which I want to address.


Superman’s Daddies

It’s not wrong to say that Superman is the most important superhero, in the sense that he created the modern superhero genre and the notion of what people consider a superhero. There’s a reason why whenever anyone creates a ‘generic superhero’ it’s always someone with Superman’s costume, maybe with gloves and a mask, and either no chest symbol or a different one.

However, I think it’s really disingenuous to say that the characters that contributed to Superman’s creation don’t matter. Both Hugo Danner (Gladiator) and John Carter (A Princess of Mars) not only laid the groundwork for Superman’s abilities (superstrength, durability, leaping, super senses) but John also supplied the origin and explanation for said abilities as an alien from another world on a planet with weaker gravity. Characters like the Phantom were wearing spandex costumes under street clothes, and other pulp heroes like the Shadow and the Spider were fighting crime while maintaining a secret identity. Doc Savage not only supplied Superman with a few names (as he was both CLARK Savage Jr. and known as THE MAN OF BRONZE), but also things like an arctic base (which was literally called The Fortress of Solitude in Doc’s own books), an example of an extremely moral paragon, and the kind of science adventures Superman would get up to.

In short, Superman owes a lot to the characters that came before him, which Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were inspired by and combined in truly unique way at the time. If any one of those elements don’t exist we maybe don’t get Superman, and each of those characters are important in their own right (save maybe poor Hugo Danner). John Carter of Mars is one of the most influential sci-fi heroes of all time, inspiring the likes of Superman, Flash Gordon and Star Wars. The Phantom is incredibly popular world wide and you can still read stories of him to this day. Doc Savage and the Shadow are considered the icons of the pulp era and you can still find their stories and people inspired by them these days.

I’m not knocking Superman (and only knocking Jab a little), but it’s important to give credit where it’s due.

oh, I give credit to the origins of Superman here, directly stating that Siegel & Shuster swiped the Danner stuff in particular, but my point is that Superman is so monumental that he's eclipsed those and is the One True First Superhero because of it. It's more a response to fan nitpicking over the years where they keep going back further and further to go "UM AKSHULLY!" about who the first was.

To me, the other characters are respected relics, but still just relics. The Phantom is still read about in some places, but his peak was 90 years ago.

[Jabroniville]

Here's some comments from someone who loved Byrne's Superman best... while detailing a lot of the flaws at the same time: http://rikdad.blogspot.com/2015/03/retr ... erman.html

[Jabroniville]

SUPERMAN (Clark Kent, aka Kal-El)- Latter-Day Standard DC Version
Created By: Jerry Siegel & Joe Schuster
First Appearance: Action Comics #1 (June 1938)
Role: The Inspiration, Super-Heavyweight Fighter, Flying Brick
PL 15 (351)
STRENGTH 19 STAMINA 17 AGILITY 4
FIGHTING 11 DEXTERITY 4
INTELLIGENCE 4 AWARENESS 5 PRESENCE 5

Skills:
Aerobatics 4 (+8)
Deception 4 (+8)
Expertise (History) 2 (+6)
Expertise (Reporter) 6 (+10)
Expertise (Farming) 2 (+5)
Insight 6 (+11)
Intimidation 4 (+9)
Investigation 5 (+10)
Perception 9 (+14)
Persuasion 4 (+9)
Ranged Combat (Heat Vision/Freeze Breath) 2 (+11)
Technology 4 (+8)

Advantages:
Accurate Attack, Diehard, Evasion, Extraordinary Effort, Fast Grab, Fearless, Great Endurance, Improved Critical (Unarmed) 2, Improved Initiative 2, Inspire, Interpose, Last Stand, Move-By Action, Power Attack, Ranged Attack 5, Takedown, Teamwork, Ultimate Strength Check, Ultimate Toughness, Withstand Damage

Powers:
"More Powerful Than a Speeding Locomotive" Power-Lifting 4 (200,000 tons) [4]
"The Man of Steel" Protection 2 (Extras: Impervious 17) [19]
Immunity 11 (Life Support, Aging) [11]

"Heat Beam" Damage 15 (Extras: Area- 60ft. Line +2) (45) -- [50]

• AE: "Heat Vision" Blast 16 (Feats: Extended Reach 2) (34)
• AE: "Freeze Breath" Affliction 14 (Strength; Hindered & Vulnerable/Stunned & Defenseless/Paralyzed) (Extras: Ranged, Extra Condition) (42)
• AE: "Freeze Cone" Affliction 14 (Strength; Hindered & Vulnerable/Stunned & Defenseless/Paralyzed) (Extras: Area- 60ft. Cone, Extra Condition) (42)
• AE: "Ground Pound" Affliction 14 (Strength/Athletics; Hindered & Vulnerable/Stunned & Defenseless) (Extras: Area- 120ft. Burst +3, Extra Condition) (Flaws: Limited Degree, Both Must Be Grounded, Instant Recovery) (28)
• AE: "Super-Breath" Affliction 14 (Strength/Athletics; Hindered & Vulnerable/Stunned & Defenseless) (Extras: Area- 120ft. Cone +2, Extra Condition) (Flaws: Limited Degree, Both Must Be Grounded, Instant Recovery) Linked to Move Object 11 (Extras: Area- 120ft. Cone +2) (Flaws: Touch Range) (36)

"Faster Than a Speeding Bullet"
Flight 18 (500,000 mph) (Feats: Dynamic) (37) -- [41]

• Dynamic AE: Quickness 16 (Feats: Dynamic) (17)
• Dynamic AE: Speed 15 (64,000 mph) (Feats: Dynamic) (16)

Movement 1 (Space Travel 1) [2]

Senses 19 (Extended Vision & Hearing 3, Analytical, Infra, Ultra & Microvision 4, Vision Penetrates Concealment, Ultra-Hearing) [19]

Offense:
Unarmed +12 (+18 Damage, DC 33)
Heat Vision +11 (+16 Ranged Damage, DC 31)
Heat Beam +15 Area (+15 Damage, DC 30)
Freeze Breath +11 (+14 Ranged Affliction, DC 24)
Freeze Cone/Ground Pound +14 Area (+14 Affliction, DC 24)
Initiative +12

Defenses:
Dodge +11 (DC 21), Parry +11 (DC 21), Toughness +19 (+10 Impervious), Fortitude +17, Will +13

Complications:
Secret (Clark Kent)- Only Lana Lang and Ma & Pa Kent know his secret.
Motivation (Truth, Justice & The American Way)
Power Loss/Vulnerable (Kryptonite)- Superboy will lose all of his powers, and soon begin to die, if exposed to Kryptonite, the element of his dead homeworld.
Power Loss/Vulnerable (Red Sun Radiation)- Earth's Yellow Sun empowers Superboy- without it, he will soon lose his powers. Red Sun-based energies will do much more damage to him. Typically, Brainiac-5 will give him some kind of protection against this weakness.
Power Loss/Vulnerable (Magic)- Magic has a vague effect on Superman- sometimes he's so vulnerable to it that a werewolf or something can hurt him- at other times, it just hurts a bit more than regular attacks would.
Power Loss (X-Ray Vision)- Kryptonian X-Ray Vision cannot penetrate lead.
Relationship (Lois Lane)- The two are now happily-married.
Relationship (Ma & Pa Kent)- Clark still looks up to his elderly parents, and uses them to morally centre himself.
Relationship (Batman)- The two are the preeminent heroes of their Earth, but have troubles getting along. Superman is idealistic, noble and good-natured, while Batman is cynical, mistrustful and grim. They rarely see eye-to-eye philosophically except on the fact that neither of them want to see anybody die.
Responsibility (Human Life)- Clark believes deeply that all life is important.

Total: Abilities: 138 / Skills: 52--26 / Advantages: 26 / Powers: 146 / Defenses: 15 (351)

-Superman eventually hit this level, fitting a bit under his Silver Age, unstoppable self, but still being DC's most-powerful hero by a ways. For a time he had a mullet, which is AWESOME. This is the guy in Grant Morrison's JLA, treated as the "First Among Equals" in DC. Things like a vulnerability to Red Sun Radiation & Magic were amplified more than ever in this version to come up with more reasons why he could fail, and he was still brought up against threats too bad-ass to just beat up, but this is one of the most powerful versions outside of the "moving planets" Silver Age version.

[Jabroniville]

SUPERMAN RED/SUPERMAN BLUE (Clark Kent, aka Kal-El)
Created By: Jerry Siegel & Joe Schuster
First Appearance: Action Comics #1 (June 1938)
Role: The Inspiration, Super-Heavyweight Fighter, Flying Brick
PL 15 (364)
STRENGTH 19 STAMINA 17 AGILITY 4
FIGHTING 11 DEXTERITY 4
INTELLIGENCE 4 AWARENESS 5 PRESENCE 5

Skills:
Aerobatics 4 (+8)
Deception 4 (+8)
Expertise (History) 2 (+6)
Expertise (Space Hero) 2 (+6)
Expertise (Farming) 2 (+5)
Expertise (Reporter) 6 (+10)
Insight 6 (+11)
Intimidation 4 (+9)
Investigation 5 (+10)
Perception 9 (+14)
Persuasion 4 (+9)
Ranged Combat (Heat Vision/Freeze Breath) 2 (+11)
Technology 4 (+8)

Advantages:
Accurate Attack, Diehard, Evasion, Extraordinary Effort, Fast Grab, Fearless, Great Endurance, Improved Critical (Unarmed) 2, Improved Initiative 2, Inspire, Last Stand, Move-By Action, Power Attack, Ranged Attack 5, Takedown, Teamwork, Ultimate Strength Check, Ultimate Toughness, Withstand Damage

Powers:
"More Powerful Than a Speeding Locomotive" Power-Lifting 4 (200,000 tons) [4]
"The Man of Steel" Protection 2 (Extras: Impervious 17) [19]
Immunity 11 (Life Support, Aging) [11]

"Electrical Stuff"
Electrical Blast 18 (Feats: Precise) (Extras: Penetrating 8) (45) -- [46]

• AE: "Magnetic Tractor Beam" Move Object 16 (Flaws: Limited to Towards Himself) (16)

Senses 8 (Detect Energy- Ranged 4, Analytical, Acute) [8]
Insubstantial 4 [20]

"Faster Than a Speeding Bullet"
Flight 20 (2,000,000 mph) (Feats: Dynamic) (41) -- [45]

• Dynamic AE: Quickness 16 (Feats: Dynamic) (17)
• Dynamic AE: Speed 17 (250,000 mph) (Feats: Dynamic) (18)

Movement 2 (Space Travel 2) [4]

Offense:
Unarmed +12 (+18 Damage, DC 33)
Electrical Blast +11 (+18 Ranged Damage, DC 33)
Initiative +3

Defenses:
Dodge +11 (DC 21), Parry +11 (DC 21), Toughness +19 (+10 Impervious), Fortitude +17, Will +13

Complications:
Secret (Clark Kent)- Only Lana Lang and Ma & Pa Kent know his secret.
Motivation (Truth, Justice & The American Way)
Involuntary Transformation (Energy Form)- Clark requires his suit to properly hold himself together- if it is damaged too much, he may disperse.
Relationship (Lois Lane)- The two are now happily-married.
Relationship (Ma & Pa Kent)- Clark still looks up to his elderly parents, and uses them to morally centre himself.
Relationship (Batman)- The two are the preeminent heroes of their Earth, but have troubles getting along. Superman is idealistic, noble and good-natured, while Batman is cynical, mistrustful and grim. They rarely see eye-to-eye philosophically except on the fact that neither of them want to see anybody die.
Responsibility (Human Life)- Clark believes deeply that all life is important.
Normal Identity (Clark Kent)- Superman must actively turn into his "powered version" now, and clearly looks superpowered while doing it. As Clark he is ST 2, STA 4, AGI 3.

Total: Abilities: 138 / Skills: 54--27 / Advantages: 25 / Powers: 157 / Defenses: 15 (362)

-In the late '90s, DC briefly gave Superman a new look and a new power-set. This was highly-controversial, but really... I don't see why a temporary change needs to be so bothersome. It's FRIGGIN' SUPERMAN. He's been wearing the same outfit for eighty years- throw a new design on him and you can do a big thing when his classic look inevitably returns. It's something NEW every once in a while, y'know? What's sad is that the look wasn't so awful (it's super-dated now, as the whole "Head Mask With Hair Showing" look is very '90s), but got crapped on because it's of course the most classic look in comics. And also because Grant Morrison got stuck with this version for a year or so, annoying him greatly (or so I heard) in his JLA run.

-This version has some new powers, is still Super-Strong, and has a Normal Identity Complication, as he's non-powered as Clark. He gained these powers when he was drained of some solar radiation, split into Red & Blue Supermen because of some stuff, and got his old ones back when he blasted out the last of his electricity against The Millennium Giants. Because comics. It's really now seen as kind of a "Dork Age" for the books, if it's remembered at all. It's actually based off of an "imaginary story" from the Silver Age, where Superman builds a machine to increase his intelligence, splitting into two Supermen- one marries Lana Lang and the other Lois Lane, and they successfully remove all crime from Earth.

[Davies]

A: Superman got his old powers back when he blasted out the last of his electricity against The Millennium Giants.
B: Who?
A: Exactly.