Is Superman Too Overpowered?

[Calemyr]

Superman isn't too overpowered in his own stories, to some degree. As others have said, his good stuff is where he's actually fighting his own powers - where he knows how easily he could fix something and how badly he'd break everything else if he tried. There still seems to be way too often where he's almost viewed as a detriment to his own stories, introducing crippling weaknesses and such, intentionally limiting him so that his awesomeness doesn't save the day before a story can be told, but those are the weak stories.

Superman, however, is absurdly overpowered outside of his stories. He's Chuck Norris squared. Doesn't matter what you pit him against, popular opinion will have him win, with the unique exception of Batman, where the populous is pretty evenly split. When a man can bench press a planet for days, you can't compare him to much of anything and get an interesting result without rigging the game or arbitrarily applying the limits he places on himself.

[thorgrim29]

EDIT: What's So Funny About Truth, Justice and the American Way? (a.k.a; Superman vs. The Elite) How could I forget?

I liked that one a lot.

Also I didn't read the comic so I can't compare but the All Star Superman cartoon was good too. It showed Supes as a godlike being that, at the end of the day, cares deeply about everyone and just wants to do right by them. I also really like Luthor in that cartoon.

[Lacuna Caster]

People often misunderstand what "flaws" actually mean for a fictional character.

Flaws in a fictional character means something the character lacks. Something that gives rise to needs and wants so that the character has a reason to do something.

No, I was talking more about 'flaw' in the sense of 'problematic facet of personality'- a vice or sin or foible.

Superman's craving for social contact is one of his more humanising aspects, alright, but, uh... ...this is kind of what I'm talking about when I mention incoherence. New York alone has roughly one crime every 2 minutes, so it's not clear how certain versions of Superman get time to sleep, let alone hold down a 9-5 or spend weekends in Smallville. It's an old puzzler.

In theory this is more of a problem with the setting rather than the character concept, but I guess that brings me to the next point-

New 52 Superman is fairly dumb. And you can thank Nolan's Batman trilogy for that. Batman V. Superman is going to be terrible. Because that kind of Batman can't exist in the same world as Superman.

I'd say the conflict isn't so much between Batman and Supes themselves as between their respective habitats, but... yeah. Gritty realistic Batman + shared universe leads to some integration challenges.


Anyhoo- For The Man Who Has Everything was nice, but the DCAU appearance that impressed me most was when Supes has this genuine look of shock and concern on his face after finding a crashed Lex Luthor unconscious, just after the latter was vigorously trying to kill him with lasers. That's, like, epic-level no-hard-feelings. :P

[Flickerdart]

New York alone has roughly one crime every 2 minutes

a) That's New York, not Metropolis.
b) Do you really think there would be so many crimes if "alien that shoots lasers from his eyes" was a very real threat?

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Sandman is one of the most critically acclaimed stories of all time. It's eponymous sometime protagonist is functionally omnipotent within his sanctum and spheres of influence. Stories centering on him do not lack for drama, as all his power doesn't do anything to solve his problems.

You can easily tell a story about 5 all powerful gods sitting around for tea. A protagonist is only overpowered when they effectively kill whatever conflict is supposed to exist in a story.

I would argue that Sandman doesn't draw most of its appeal from "can Morpheus solve the problem facing him?", but rather from looking at the decisions that Morpheus makes, and seeing their consequences. And also from using the Endless to talk about aspects of humanity. Really, the main drama of Sandman comes from the humans.

[thorgrim29]

b) Do you really think there would be so many crimes if "alien that shoots lasers from his eyes" was a very real threat?

Sure, probably even more. The death penalty isn't enough to deter people IRL, and I'd rather get stopped by Superman than a bunch of trigger happy cops any day of the week. Batman not so much, but Superman is all about minimum necessary force.

[Lacuna Caster]

a) That's New York, not Metropolis.
b) Do you really think there would be so many crimes if "alien that shoots lasers from his eyes" was a very real threat?

Oh, possibly not, but my point is that a guy who can circumnavigate the globe in under 3 seconds has no particular reason to limit himself to Metropolis. (Other than saying 'I don't care about stuff outside my arbitrarily-selected backyard', which... isn't really compatible with perfect benevolence.)

The uptake is that Superman can't really exist in a world that resembles ours. He'd either have no time for anything resembling a civilian life or he'd be deliberately indifferent to many instances of human suffering. And if he actually succeeded in reducing crime to a rate that's manageable by a single super-individual, then you couldn't have Gotham City. You'd have Red Son.

[GloatingSwine]

No, I was talking more about 'flaw' in the sense of 'problematic facet of personality'- a vice or sin or foible.

Yeah, but those aren't actually needed for a complete and interesting dramatic character. The other kind of flaw, the thing they lack which motivates them to action, is.

Now, a personality flaw can be a dramatic flaw (especially when it leads to a conflict between what the character wants and what they need, Superman wants to be Clark Kent but he needs to accept being Superman), but they're not actually what makes characters dramatically interesting.

[Tyndmyr]

No, I was talking more about 'flaw' in the sense of 'problematic facet of personality'- a vice or sin or foible.

Superman's craving for social contact is one of his more humanising aspects, alright, but, uh... ...this is kind of what I'm talking about when I mention incoherence. New York alone has roughly one crime every 2 minutes, so it's not clear how certain versions of Superman get time to sleep, let alone hold down a 9-5 or spend weekends in Smallville. It's an old puzzler.

I suggest reading Irredeemable. It plays with such things quite a bit, and has a lot of fun in doing so.

[Cheesegear]

Also I didn't read the comic so I can't compare but the All Star Superman cartoon was good too.

All-Star is generally considered to be one of the best Superman stories that exists. You aren't wrong. Unfortunately, it's not in continuity. So that's why I didn't include it.

[Legato Endless]

Superman, however, is absurdly overpowered outside of his stories. He's Chuck Norris squared. Doesn't matter what you pit him against, popular opinion will have him win, with the unique exception of Batman, where the populous is pretty evenly split. When a man can bench press a planet for days, you can't compare him to much of anything and get an interesting result without rigging the game or arbitrarily applying the limits he places on himself.

DCAU Justice League is a good example of this, with Superman getting arbitrarily limited quite often, usually via electricity. A fair number of comics also have this occur in some fashion. It's a lot like V really.

I'd say the conflict isn't so much between Batman and Supes themselves as between their respective habitats, but... yeah. Gritty realistic Batman + shared universe leads to some integration challenges.

DC and Marvel being so dissociated at times has a misbegotten tendency for writers try to tell stories in a world that can't host them. Faith versus doubt and the metaphysical is a common one. Whenever I see one of the movers and shakers grapple with atheism in mainline DC continuity, it never makes sense in a world where the Wrath of God walks around on the street and occasionally punches out other gods. In big visible events mortals can see.

I would argue that Sandman doesn't draw most of its appeal from "can Morpheus solve the problem facing him?", but rather from looking at the decisions that Morpheus makes, and seeing their consequences. And also from using the Endless to talk about aspects of humanity. Really, the main drama of Sandman comes from the humans.

The arc before the wake is pretty dramatically centered on Morpheus. His inability to ultimately solve the issue is the driving question of volume 9. There are mortals there, but they're swept up in the storm of his identity. The symbolism is pretty vivid about this.

[Dienekes]

The arc before the wake is pretty dramatically centered on Morpheus. His inability to ultimately solve the issue is the driving question of volume 9. There are mortals there, but they're swept up in the storm of his identity. The symbolism is pretty vivid about this.

Aye, the entire series follows the pattern of one arc that centers on Morpheus followed by an arc that either is a series of vignettes or a story that focuses on humans. But each of the vignettes and non-Morpheus-centric stories still reveal important details either about Morpheus' personality and flaws or what will tie to Morpheus' fate. The drama of the story is really all about Morpheus, his arrogance, and where his flaws and decisions will ultimately lead him.

[Talakeal]

Baseline Superman is fine. He is strong, but there are stronger people out there, and he has enough weaknesses that he can still be challenged by lower tier foes with a good plan.

The problem is Superman has a nasty habit of either making up new powers or doing things that are just flat out impossible.

A composite superman who is smarter than a super computer, can travel thousands of times the speed of light, can move galaxies, can time travel, can manipulate peoples memories with a kiss, etc. ie one who regularly uses all the powers writers have given him over the years, would change the world in an instant.

The energy needed to move a galaxy is greater than all the energy ever generated by man, if he could just store that energy (should be easy for someone as smart as him) he could end the worlds energy crisis in the blink of an eye.

He could easilly stop all crime on Earth if he wanted and still have time to be Clark Kent. And that is just the beginning.

[Brother Oni]

All-Star is generally considered to be one of the best Superman stories that exists. You aren't wrong. Unfortunately, it's not in continuity. So that's why I didn't include it.

I've heard good things about Kingdom Come, but I've not read it. As I understand the premise, is it also out of continuity?

[theNater]

New York alone has roughly one crime every 2 minutes, so it's not clear how certain versions of Superman get time to sleep, let alone hold down a 9-5 or spend weekends in Smallville. It's an old puzzler.

There is no way Superman can personally stop every crime. Even if he's capable of moving fast enough, an object that heavy moving that fast would do incalculable damage to the surroundings. This means he has to find some other way to help. What do we know about him that might lead us to discern what that is?

Well, there's this:

...I'd rather get stopped by Superman than a bunch of trigger happy cops any day of the week.

Getting arrested by Superman is probably a relatively pleasant experience. And somebody who commits a crime out of desperation and has a nice talk with kind and caring Superman on the way to jail is probably somewhat less likely to commit another crime in the future. And their family is probably less likely to become afraid of the cops, especially compared to how they'd react if the cops had killed this criminal. So there's going to be, overall, a little more trust of the cops, which in turn will make the cops less afraid and therefore (probably) less trigger happy. This triggers an overall upward spiral to the point that practically the only criminals are those who either have sat down and decided that criminality makes the most sense, or who have been criminals for so long that being a criminal is part of their self-image. This is Metropolis, as we usually see it.

The neat thing about all this is that, by taking that extra bit of time to comfort people, Superman ends up in a situation where's he's preventing more crimes in his sleep than he could in a 24-hour day of zipping around, depositing crooks in jail before they know what's happening.

[Cheesegear]

I've heard good things about Kingdom Come, but I've not read it. As I understand the premise, is it also out of continuity?

KC is also one of the better Superman stories. Unfortunately, yes. It isn't in continuity.

But, back to the premise of the thread?
Q. Is Superman Overpowered?
A. Compared to what? What story are you telling?

There are a lot of great Superman stories, that feature him and him alone. That's why there are all these great Elseworlds/non-canon stories that feature Supes, because they don't have to worry about anyone else getting in the way. Writers can write good, self-contained stories about Superman, without worrying about annoying things like 'continuity' and being under editorial mandates to make 'Batman look just as good if not better'. Because it's not actually possible to make Batman better than Superman, given the way that Supes has been established.

The conversation got so stupid, that way back in 1990, Superman gave Batman Luthor's Kryptonite ring, and it's basically been in Batman's possession ever since (and used forever in pointless VS. Threads). Can Batman beat Superman? Yes. Batman can beat Superman because he has an item that renders the fight obsolete, without even trying.
B-man: "Hey Superman, remember that time you gave me a Kryptonite ring for this exact situation?"
S-man: "Sure do, Bats."
B-man: "I've still got it. I win."

In this 'story', which of the two characters is overpowered? 'Cause it ain't Superman.

[Forum Explorer]

I'm going to say yes. His feats are absurd, and it's not like he's only physically strong as he's capable of doing stuff like a lightspeed lobotomy to disable someone's powers without otherwise harming them.

Which means the only stories that can be really used are emotional ones, which can work, but then they throw him in with the Justice League and the whole thing falls apart. He doesn't play well in a wider universe.

[Anteros]

People always say that it's the struggle of a all-powerful being to be human that makes Superman interesting. I think that's fair, because it is an interesting concept, and you can get a few good stories out of that. The problem is that you can get a few stories out of it, not 100 years worth of comic material.

So yes, it is entirely possible to tell a good Superman story...they just don't do it very often. If a character is so powerful that it greatly limits the number of interesting stories you can tell about them, then they are probably too "overpowered". At least for a serial medium like comic books.

[Cheesegear]

He doesn't play well in a wider universe.

Correct. He also doesn't play well in a post-Nolan/New 52 continuity.

[Lacuna Caster]

Yeah, but those aren't actually needed for a complete and interesting dramatic character. The other kind of flaw, the thing they lack which motivates them to action, is.

Now, a personality flaw can be a dramatic flaw (especially when it leads to a conflict between what the character wants and what they need, Superman wants to be Clark Kent but he needs to accept being Superman), but they're not actually what makes characters dramatically interesting.

I'd agree that 'evidence of motivation' is what makes characters dramatically interesting, but the key point is getting the evidence across. You show that a character wants A by virtue of a willingness to sacrifice B to get it. e.g, "I will sacrifice my safety to protect innocents." "I will sacrifice a chance to save my girlfriend to protect the city." "I will sacrifice public respect to preserve faith in the system." et cetera.

The problem with Superman-as-written is that, by default, there's not much he can sacrifice. Like I mentioned earlier, entering a burning building to pull out survivors says a lot more about your convictions if you're not invulnerable.

You can pit him against atomic space monsters that could beat him up, but not too much, or people complain that his cape keeps getting torn. You could show him sacrificing his spare time and social ties, but not too much, or Clark Kent becomes impossible to maintain. And you could show him sacrificing his own sense of ethics, but not too much, because then he's not a spandex paladin any more. (And you'd have to establish those ethics independently beforehand for this to work.)

Basically, Superman writers have to walk this remarkably narrow tightrope in order for Superman to exhibit his canonical teflon attributes with any depth or consistency. And the world he inhabits has to be specially tailored for the purpose.

[Lacuna Caster]

The neat thing about all this is that, by taking that extra bit of time to comfort people, Superman ends up in a situation where's he's preventing more crimes in his sleep than he could in a 24-hour day of zipping around, depositing crooks in jail before they know what's happening.

All very plausible, but my point is that at no stage does spending the weekend in Smallville or on dates with Lois particularly further this utilitarian calculation. It's doubtful that using the Daily Planet as a soapbox does (and if it did, it's not clear why a public statement straight from the mouth of Superman wouldn't be more effective.) It's also not obvious why, having cleaned up Metropolis, he doesn't move on other cities with evidently higher crime rates.

I'm not saying that Superman wanting some 'me time' isn't entirely understandable and human. Likewise if he's decided that Metropolis/America is his home turf and he's not going to concern himself with wider injustice. But those are flaws, in the sense of 'deviation from optimal goodness'.

Alternatively, you could have a version of Superman that really does focus on long-term global policing, which involves forming the Justice League and/or some variety of world government (Kingdom Come, Red Son, A Better World.) But then he comes across as meddling and patronising, which is also a (very human) flaw.


Or, you can insert him in a world where crime occurs just frequently enough to eat up a large fraction of his spare time, but not more. And there's nothing wrong with that approach. It just isn't our particular world. And that really is the only world where he will always know the right thing to do.



EDIT: At any rate. I guess the point that I'm very elliptically driving at (which I think Talakeal and others have touched on already) is that many versions of Superman are too powerful for him to fit in a given setting. The early Golden Age version, for example, really had no hope of stopping global crime and therefore couldn't be blamed for not trying to. (He was kind of a jerk anyway, but I find that endearing.)

[theNater]

All very plausible, but my point is that at no stage does spending the weekend in Smallville or on dates with Lois particularly further this utilitarian calculation. It's doubtful that using the Daily Planet as a soapbox does (and if it did, it's not clear why a public statement straight from the mouth of Superman wouldn't be more effective.) It's also not obvious why, having cleaned up Metropolis, he doesn't move on other cities with evidently higher crime rates.

I'm not saying that Superman wanting some 'me time' isn't entirely understandable and human.

If Superman becomes Dr. Manhattan(from Watchmen), he ceases to be good at the parts of the job that function long-term. Keeping a home, a family, a job, and friends keep him engaged in the world. "Me time" isn't just pleasant, it's necessary to be a fully functioning person. You mentioned sleep earlier; how effective a crime fighter is he gonna be when he starts to hallucinate due to lack of sleep?

Having a home, of course, means that one city is going to be the focus of his direct work. So probably best to pick a city that has lots of visitors, so that the effect can propagate("this city's really nice; when I get back I'm gonna make my city more like it"). Like, say, Metropolis.

[GloatingSwine]

People always say that it's the struggle of a all-powerful being to be human that makes Superman interesting. I think that's fair, because it is an interesting concept, and you can get a few good stories out of that. The problem is that you can get a few stories out of it, not 100 years worth of comic material.

So yes, it is entirely possible to tell a good Superman story...they just don't do it very often. If a character is so powerful that it greatly limits the number of interesting stories you can tell about them, then they are probably too "overpowered". At least for a serial medium like comic books.

You can't get 100 years of comic material out of anything without the vast majority of it being boring tripe. That's why nobody ever has.

Hell, comics run on the same 3-5 year cycle as wrestling, where they assume that most of the audience has been replaced after that time because older readers lose interest and newer ones come in, so they can just repeat the same stories with a few costumes shuffled round and it's fresh again. (See also: Civil War 2)

Which means the only stories that can be really used are emotional ones, which can work, but then they throw him in with the Justice League and the whole thing falls apart. He doesn't play well in a wider universe.

The emotional and iconic* stories are the ones people actually remember. The workaday punch-the-baddie stories are forgotten a few years later.


The argument that Superman doesn't work in shared universes with long term continuity has some kind of merit, but mostly because shared universes with long term continuity are invariably going to mostly produce bollocks anyway with even fewer diamonds in the sea of poo than solo franchise books, so it's not a big loss.




* Iconic stories are the ones that ignore continuity and just use the parts of the character that are recognisable to the general cultural consciousness. A good Superman example is All-Star Superman, but the movie representation of comic characters tend to be iconic stories as well.

[Jan Mattys]

You can't get 100 years of comic material out of anything without the vast majority of it being boring tripe. That's why nobody ever has.

Hell, comics run on the same 3-5 year cycle as wrestling, where they assume that most of the audience has been replaced after that time because older readers lose interest and newer ones come in, so they can just repeat the same stories with a few costumes shuffled round and it's fresh again. (See also: Civil War 2)



The emotional and iconic* stories are the ones people actually remember. The workaday punch-the-baddie stories are forgotten a few years later.


The argument that Superman doesn't work in shared universes with long term continuity has some kind of merit, but mostly because shared universes with long term continuity are invariably going to mostly produce bollocks anyway with even fewer diamonds in the sea of poo than solo franchise books, so it's not a big loss.




* Iconic stories are the ones that ignore continuity and just use the parts of the character that are recognisable to the general cultural consciousness. A good Superman example is All-Star Superman, but the movie representation of comic characters tend to be iconic stories as well.

That's true.
I hold dear Superman Red Son, Kingdom Come and All Star Superman, and all of these are one-shots and what-ifs.

They work because they can turn the mythos upside down and play with it with a freedom unimaginable by writers who must worry about what came before and what will come after them.

[Anteros]

You can't get 100 years of comic material out of anything without the vast majority of it being boring tripe. That's why nobody ever has.

Hell, comics run on the same 3-5 year cycle as wrestling, where they assume that most of the audience has been replaced after that time because older readers lose interest and newer ones come in, so they can just repeat the same stories with a few costumes shuffled round and it's fresh again. (See also: Civil War 2)



The emotional and iconic* stories are the ones people actually remember. The workaday punch-the-baddie stories are forgotten a few years later.

This is true, but I will still argue that the typical Superman story is worse than the average Batman/Spider-Man/Etc. story as a result of this. (I'm just using Batman as an example of another major comic book character, let's not make this a Batman thread. He has his own issues.) My point was that the design of the character limits the stories you can tell with him. This is true of any character to an extent, but not to the same extent as with Superman.

If I ask for interesting Superman stories, and most people can only point out a half dozen or so from a century worth of comics, that's an indication of a bad character.

[GloatingSwine]

This is true, but I will still argue that the typical Superman story is worse than the average Batman/Spider-Man/Etc. story as a result of this.

Even if we accept that as true, the average story for any of those characters will be utterly forgotten only a few years from its release. It doesn't actually matter if the average Superman story is slightly more average than the average Batman story, we only remember the stunningly good or stunningly bad ones anyway, and I don't think the best Superman stories are necessarily worse than the best of Batman or any other franchise costume.

If I ask for interesting Superman stories, and most people can only point out a half dozen or so from a century worth of comics, that's an indication of a bad character.

Yeah, but you won't get many more than a dozen really good stories about almost any major comic book character. You can't actually tell many more original dramatic character driven stories about Batman that happen because he's not got superpowers.

[Metahuman1]

I point you to Neil Gaimen's Sandman franchise. Death of the Endless is a wonderful and fascinating character with numerous tales about her. She's also the second most powerful being in all existence behind only one other entity, that's rather heavily implied to be the omnipotent judao-christian christian deity known as the creator and to whom Arch Angle's answer.


All the other endless are also amazingly powerful, to a level were they can throw down with heads of pantheons and reasonably expect to win, and even Arch Angles would have pause to fact them for the most part.



Why do I explain this? Because it serves to point out that as long as your willing to put in the though and effort on challenging such characters, there is no such thing AS over powered.

[Anteros]

Even if we accept that as true, the average story for any of those characters will be utterly forgotten only a few years from its release. It doesn't actually matter if the average Superman story is slightly more average than the average Batman story, we only remember the stunningly good or stunningly bad ones anyway, and I don't think the best Superman stories are necessarily worse than the best of Batman or any other franchise costume.



Yeah, but you won't get many more than a dozen really good stories about almost any major comic book character. You can't actually tell many more original dramatic character driven stories about Batman that happen because he's not got superpowers.

It matters to people who actually read comics and don't just look at them on a timeline. It matters to people wondering which comic books to invest in. It wouldn't matter if people only read about comics in a history book, or to the people who only watch the occasional movie, but to the people who actually pick them up and read them every week it matters.

I'm not touching on Batman any more because that's just gonna derail the whole thread.

[GloatingSwine]

It matters to people who actually read comics and don't just look at them on a timeline. It matters to people wondering which comic books to invest in. It wouldn't matter if people only read about comics in a history book, or to the people who only watch the occasional movie, but to the people who actually pick them up and read them every week it matters.

Yeah, but nobody actually cares about them, least of all comics publishers ;)

You have to fundamentally accept that anything that goes on long enough is going to mostly just churn along, it can't be avoided. It actually does not matter how brilliant the character design is and how compelling the stories are at first, extend it long enough and it will turn into a mostly forgettable holding pattern.

No idea ever is good enough to avoid this. Sometimes the holding pattern might be reasonably entertaining whilst you're in it, if the inflight movie is OK, but you aren't going to remember it, you're going to remember the awesome holiday you have when it's over and you land.


(There is a reason I don't read ongoing comics, I just buy good trades when they come out and skip the filler arcs)

[Lacuna Caster]

I quite liked All-Star Superman (partly because he, in a rare display of far-sighted efficiency, more-or-less cures cancer with kryptonian technology.) But also because his decisions are more poignant when he's only got X months to live- even if all he sacrificed was spare time (and it wasn't) that's kind of in short supply within the story.

Still, I broadly (and subjectively) agree with Anteros- if I stack up the best Superman stories I've come across with the best, say, X-Men stories, the latter would win out, hands down. That might be due to limited exposure, but I think it's just harder to make good Superman stories. He's accumulated too many unreasonable expectations over the years- and I think it's the combination of the power level and paladin attributes and no apparent toll on his social life that does it.


EDIT: I do kind of agree that long-running shared continuities are rarely handled well in comics generally, though.