Superman General

So, the Silver age Superman was super smart. Sometimes it seems like an informed ability. Wonder why? In one story he drinks a vitamin elixir, because it shouldn't do anything to him, but it had a kryptonite like substance that resulted in the elixir turning him into an old man. I thought Jimmy was to one to eat/drink/touch something with unknown effects. Or Supes is smart like a computer with fast processing speed but not as street smart.

I find it helpful to read the Silver Age Superman almost as a sitcom. Logic goes right out the window when necessary to make the plot work, and whimsy and hijinks are the rule rather than the exception. And I mean no disrespect to the creative minds behind those stories by saying that, but I was reading some of the Showcase Presents with Silver Age Superman, and that was the easiest way for me to make sense of them.

Yeah, Silver Age Superman is so sitcom-y.

I'd like to think that during the Silver Age, Superman has successfully eradicated almost all crimes in Metropolis. Nothing is challenging enough for Superman any more, so he grows bore and takes a shine to messing with his friends.

edited 28th Oct '14 7:10:14 AM by Nightwire

Superman still possesses superintelligence, in terms of not only processing speed, but superb memory. Superman can, for instance, read a dozen books at superspeed, memorize them all, and subsequently recall and apply the information contained within them.

The key difference between he and someone like Luthor is that Superman's intelligence is—generally—imitative, while Luthor's is innovative. That isn't to say that Superman is incapable of coming up with a good plan or an original idea—far from it—but his powers are less useful to him there.

Or at least it is these days. Back in the Silver Age, Supes was building robot duplicates, shrink rays, and who knows what else left and right. It really made you wonder how Luther could stand up to someone who was basically as smart as he was, and with superpowers to boot.

edited 28th Oct '14 9:38:14 AM by kkhohoho

I know this is about a year and a half old, but I still found it pretty cool.

Ah, Cyborg-Superman. He started off as a statement on gratuitous cyborgs, and went on to become so much more.

Kinda sad the new 52 did away with him.

Are Kryptonians atricial or precocial? Sometimes Clark has powers as a baby, and other times not until his teens.

As with all things, it depends on who's writing. Golden Age had it that he had his powers as an infant, as did Silver Age stories. Byrne, who established for his retooling that Superman's powers were fueled entirely by solar energy, postulated that his powers emerged over time as he grew older and absorbed more solar energy; under Byrne, total darkness COULD sap Superman's powers, but, given how much energy he'd absorbed over the years, it would take years of total darkness before he felt the effects. I'm not sure what the official story is now, but I believe they have it that, again, while he was clearly superhuman from birth, it took time for all of his powers to fully develop. I imagine they are as well keeping the notion that Superman will get more powerful as time goes on and he absorbs more energy.

The only thing that could drain Supes' stored energy is expending it rapidly - and even Doomsday could only put him in a coma.

And a prolonged period of no exposure to yellow sunlight. Like, years and years.

How would you keep him away from yellow sunlight for years? Threaten(and be able to carry out) to kill everyone he knows?

Teleport him to a sunless/red sun planet.

And make sure the JLA can't rescue him! Except Batman had them all implant tracking devices with multiple means of interfacing with them(not sure if canon, but sounds like something he'd do).

Well, yeah. When you remove Superman, the rest of the team is cake.

Book of matches

Rope

Banana

Sticky stuff on the floor

Gun.

Yellow isn't a GL weakness anymore. And WW doesn't get affected by being tied up anymore(I think). But if we go with the Silver Age versions, some one would pull a Deus ex Machina out of their butt.

Black Kryptonite makes Superman lose his powers very quickly. He becomes evil, but also cowardly and lame, and dark, and he's a hero of light, so he gets weaker and weaker. Superman actually runs on moral probity.

By the way, is it true that after Infinite Crisis (or some other of those damned crises) Superman lost his way and stopped being an Ideal Hero to become some kind of Unscrupulous Hero?!

That whole "you damaged my costume" bit reminds me too much of "You shot my HAIR!◊"

How many Silver age plots would have been prevented if Supes just locked up all the dangerous/wacky hi-jinx stuff in the fortress of solitude? Especially when visitors come over.

Not everyone could lift that gigantic key.

He'd bring them over. And then not watch them carefully enough.

Hey, Zod, check out my excellent pad! Oh, and don't go into my intergalactic zoo.

Made me laugh. Oddly appropriate.

So, to try and get another conversation going (and I'll apologise if I've brought this up before in some form), but who are some lesser Superman villains (ie not Luthor, Brainiac, or Zod) whom you'd like to see more of? I think my liking of Mongul I is fairly well-known, but I also have a bit of a soft spot for the Prankster. He's ridiculous, but I find the whole, "distraction-for-hire" thing to be quite neat, and it's a job that I can believe existing in a superhero universe. I was thoroughly disappointed when the New 52 shifted him into being a Nightwing villain of all things. He's fought Superman, guys. He may be silly, but he's hardly a pushover.

Come to think of it, what's with Superman villains and Rogues Gallery Transplants? Cyborg-Superman, Monguls I & II, now Prankster. Keep them where they started out.