Conner is the genetic clone of Superman and Lex Luthor. Up until 2003 he was using his own Telekinetic Power to simulate Kryptonian abilities but thanks to Johns he started developing Kryptonian powers and physicals. I will go into detail more about this but right off the bat any feat that Conner does pre 2003, post 2003 Conner would be able to replicate to a much easier degree.
Developing Kryptonian Powers
As i said earlier in the 90s Superboy simulated Kryptonian Powers with Tactile Telekinesis until in Johns' 2003 Titans run where he started manifesting Kryptonian powers like X-ray Vision and Superhearing (as well as enhanced strength and flight without TTK)
in Titans #13 Batman informs Conner he now has as many tools as Superman does, indicating his Kryptonian powers are manifesting
In Blackest Night: Superman #3 Conner mentions he had been not using his TTK to try and be like Superman, which Clark calls him a moron for, after this Conner starts incorporating his TTK in combat regularly.
This would indicate that ever since Conner got his Kryptonian powers, he stopped using his TTK to amp himself. Everything he has done since 2003 has been on his natural Kryptonian Genealogy.
The reason i made note of this is you are dealing with a full fledged Kryptonian who has an added power, one that he will Capitalize On
but first
The Kryptonian Powerset
we all know what this comes with. Strength Speed, Flight, Heat Vision, Freeze Breath, Super Hearing and X-ray Vision.
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Infinite Crisis 6
In what is perhaps one of the most epic and tragic moments of all Superboy destroys the Infinite Crisis tower by pushing Superboy Prime through it. Now this did result in the death of Superboy however there is something worth noting
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Superboy had not fully recovered from Superboy Prime damn near killing him in Infinite Crisis 1/Teen Titans 32
like his heart was stopped. Conner was far from full strength when he performed that feat
with his developed powers comes Kryptonian Superspeed, while not at the same level as Superman's it is still very impressive
his operational speed got an amp to millisecond's he also has some other feats that can be scaled to much faster but this is his concrete starting point.
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Conner has also developed Heat Vision and when he absolutely lets it unleash it can even give pause to an amped Doomsday Clone specifically designed to fight Superboy.
basically he's your standard Kryptonian now and that allows him to focus his TTK elsewhere. He can rely on his natural physicals and powerset to keep up with Apollo a luxury he couldn't have back in the 90s. Superboy has really come into his own, often fighting alongside his father and facing his enemies with the same power and confidence you'd see from Superman.
Tactile Telekinesis
this is Conner's game changer, this is his key to victory. He is comparable to Apollo in every way i think, but where he widens the gap is his ability that no one else in the Superfamily has
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He is able to use his Tactile TK even while completely depowered. indicating his Kryptonian powers do not suffer when he's using it or vice versa.
he uses his TTK to absolutely take apart Kal-L (Earth 2 Superman who is at least comparable to Earth Prime Superman) now obviously Conner won't flat out kill Apollo however he can use this to knock Apollo around, engaging in melee combat with Conner is an advantage to Conner.
Apollo cannot afford to take many of these and Superboy will be able to land them. Apollo is not fast enough to land punches without Conner being able to react and tag back. Even catching a punch would allow Conner to abuse his TTK
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He can also use it as a shield to defend himself from attacks. Apollo's ranged energy attacks can be defended against via TTK as well as his natural durability.
Long Story Short
I have Conner and Apollo comparable in almost every way, they have excellent physicals across the board but the thing that will separate the two of them is Tactile Telekinesis. It his his key to victory, and he has gotten very good at using it in combat to gain the advantage. Should Conner find his life in danger he could very well take Apollo apart like he did Kal-L
His natural Kryptonian Powerset will keep him even with Apollo, his TTK gives him the edge.
This intro is a little sparce, i relied on very little scaling because i wanted to establish a baseline for Conner but he still has excellent feats left to be shown. I just wanted to give you a basic Intro into what you are dealing with from Kon-El. He very much belongs in the same category as his half-father and half cousin even though he's not their equal.
I find this to be a fairly interesting match thematically. Apollo is an analogue of Superman and his opponent Superboy is Superman's literal clone. As such, these two have very similar powersets despite their very different personalities and even universes. But that's exactly why this match is an interesting one; two characters, similar abilities, but different applications. And it's those differences that will be the key to Apollo winning this match.
Sun King I - Abilities
As mentioned, Apollo shares many similarities in abilities with your typical Kryptonian, though with a noticeable extra focus on the Sun related aspects, befitting his name. Apollo's powers all stem from solar energy which fuels all the usual powers of flight, super strength, etc. Unique to Apollo, however, is that his energy reserves function more like a rechargeable battery, with him losing power from big attacks and recharging mid-fight when in direct sunlight. Apollo himself is aware of this and he's more than willing to move a fight into somewhere with more sunlight, even going as far as to teleport to the sun against Captain Atom.
Apollo's most notable usage of this power his energy projection usually shot from the eyes, and more notably his Halo Effect, with which he releases a massive amount of energy in an AoE fashion. As an example of the power of his energy projection:
Stormwatch (2011) #10
Despite being drained from having just used his Halo Effect, Apollo releases a huge blast of energy that dwarfs the surrounding mountains, just to take out nearby communications. Doing so casually didn't drain his energy reserves any notable amount, which speaks to his more powerful attacks that do.
As with most comic characters, we could both use and abuse scaling quite a bit, which is why for this match I want to primarily rely on Apollo's own standalone feats, and in light of that I figured I wouldn't waste any time and just show Apollo's best energy projection feat.
The Authority (1999) #10
At the end of the initial run of The Authority Jenny asks Apollo to sterilise the entire moon and... he does so. It's worth noting that prior to Apollo's sterilization the deformations on the moon were clearly visible from Earth, unlike afterwards where it appears as normal. So Apollo essentially surface-wiped the entire moon in two pages flat, and whilst not as casual as the prior feat it also clearly didn't drain him any significant amount.
Sun King II - Physicals
Both Superboy and Apollo are fairly physical fighters for the most part, so a big part of this fight will come down to their physical abilities, an area in which Apollo at least comparable if not superior to Conner in.
Though his physical abilities should reasonably be comparable to his energy projection due to them both being powered by his solar reserves, scaling between the two isn't really necessary when Apollo has his own impressive physical feats. Now, you showed Conner destroying the IC Tower with a bullrush, to which I raise you the following feat from Apollo.
The Authority (2003) #3
In this instance, Apollo bullrushes through and destroys part of a ship that is stated to have "a docking bay the size of a continent". Given what we visually see I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that Apollo destroyed more than simply the docking bay, and whilst I'm not sure on the exact size of the IC Tower, I feel comfortable in saying that Apollo's feat is superior given that he didn't die performing it.
When it comes to speed, I think Apollo is also more impressive from what's been shown so far. Millisecond timing isn't all that relevant to someone who could fly halfway around the world in 30 seconds early into his career. To clarify, such a feat would mean that Apollo could cross nearly 700 metres in a single millisecond. However, I'm aware that this is travel speed and that you have more to show for Superboy so I'll show a better and more clear cut operational speed feat for Apollo.
The Authority (1999) #9/10
Let me clarify what's happening here in case it's not immediately clear. The last page of #9 shows a bunch of attacks being sent from the moon to Tokyo in Japan, an event which the Doctor somewhat predicted earlier in the issue. The first page of #10 shows them en-route and clearly takes place almost immediately after where #9 left off, with Midnighter and Apollo teleporting into Tokyo to see what the Doctor was worried about. They talk for less than half a page before Midnighter looks up and sees the incoming attacks, which is when Apollo responds as we see in the last page of my collage. Given the context, I think it's fair to say that these things travelled from the Moon to the Earth in no more than a minute or so, making them incredibly fast. Which in turn speaks to Apollo's speed, as he makes several fly-by's bull-rushing through them and destroying some with his heat vision before they hit the ground, clearly displaying the ability to react to them and arguably outspeed them, tagging them several times as they're in transit.
Sun King III - Apollo's X-Factors
It hasn't passed my notice that you're arguing Conner's TTK as his single distinct advantage and as his general win condition. I'm not in a position to do the same as Apollo has no such clear cut versatility advantage, but what he does have is a series of smaller advantages that all come together in what I'd call Apollo's Efficient Brutality.
What does Efficient Brutality mean? Well, it means several things, but generally speaking, it means that Apollo is both willing and able to exploit anything to ensure his victory. The most simple way this can be seen is just in the inherent brutality of the Authority as a whole. Unlike most superhero teams that would shy away from taking lives, The Authority is a group that, befitting their name, don't hesitate to kill their opponents, and generally see it as the default option. This in and of itself is an advantage over Conner, who you yourself admitted would avoid killing Apollo, because Apollo's disdain for the health of his opponent means that nothing is off the table. We see this in action on a regular basis in Authority titles, heads punched off, spines ripped out; heck Apollo once fried a dude's testicles with his heat vision and that was after the Authority realised they had almost no-one to question because they killed everyone else without realising.
Another thing Brutal Efficiency means is that Apollo won't shy away from fighting dirty, something further enabled by his training by Henry Bendix. Take his fight against John Clay for instance.
The Authority (2003) #9
Nut shots, grabbing him by the mouth, blasting him in the eyes whilst he's talking; these are all fairly underhanded fighting techniques and they're all things Apollo does in this fight. Apollo also references his training by Bendix here (former leader of Stormwatch, creator of several superhumans, etc.), stating "all your strength means nothing if you don't know how to use it". Now I'm not going to suggest that Conner doesn't know how to use his strength, but what I am suggesting that Apollo most certainly does.
The last thing I want to mention here is that Apollo is more than willing to make full use of his powerset when appropriate, which, in a fight like this, probably means manoeuvring to any environment that suits him better; i.e. one where he can catch the sun. Now, this could be accomplished via a bullrush, or it could be accomplished via Doors, the Authority's teleportation tech that creates a yellow portal. These portals can be opened anywhere on earth and many places beyond, as I mentioned in my first section that Apollo has created Doors to the sun itself to get an edge on his opponent. Being in even artificial sunlight is enough to speed up his healing and being in sunlight also helps to recharge his energy reserves mid-fight, which generally gives him much greater endurance than he would ordinarily have.
Initial Thoughts
As I started this post by saying, Apollo and Superboy are two fairly similar characters in abilities, but their differences are what will allow Apollo to win this match. Whilst I think Apollo has a bit of a stat advantage from the feats shown so far, what makes me confident in Apollo's victory is his brutal efficiency which will allow him to use his powers and abilities in ways Conner wouldn't.
Superboy is half Kryptonian this is important to remember as Kryptonians are basically solar batteries and Apollo's energy is basically solar radiation
this is from Superboy's early run before he got amped by Johns but even at this point solar energy restores and makes him stronger. If Apollo were to hit him with his solar energy he in all likelihood would not only heal Superboy but also make him stronger especially if he hits him with a moon cleansing blast.
I think this is more hampering to Apollo than anyone wants to admit, Apollo must now fight entirely in in H2H or risk amping Superboy. This will allow Superboy's tactile telekinesis to secure the victory
Now i am no fool... Superboy's heatvision is the same as Supermans and that means its stored up solar energy, which would amp and restore Apollo as well so there will likely be shenanigans at the beginning, however Conner losing his HV is not as big a deal to him as it is to Apollo losing his energy blasts.
Some Discrepancies in Physicals
In this instance, Apollo bullrushes through and destroys part of a ship that is stated to have "a docking bay the size of a continent". Given what we visually see I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that Apollo destroyed more than simply the docking bay, and whilst I'm not sure on the exact size of the IC Tower, I feel comfortable in saying that Apollo's feat is superior given that he didn't die performing it.
I already explained the reason Superboy died and it had nothing to do with the strike... it had everything to do with Conner already being massively weakened before even attempting it.
in Teen Titans 32 which shows the events that happened at the very beginning of Crisis he was literally dead... like no breathing, CPR needed dead. Superboy Prime basically killed him and they were able to revive him.
Nightwing even noted in the scan i posted that Conner was far from full strength while attempting said feat.
and while Apollo's may have been slightly more not enough for Superboy to not compete. Superboy's striking can be scaled to near his half father's and when he is weakened he is still more than capable of operating at high tiers
Let me clarify what's happening here in case it's not immediately clear. The last page of #9 shows a bunch of attacks being sent from the moon to Tokyo in Japan, an event which the Doctor somewhat predicted earlier in the issue. The first page of #10 shows them en-route and clearly takes place almost immediately after where #9 left off, with Midnighter and Apollo teleporting into Tokyo to see what the Doctor was worried about. They talk for less than half a page before Midnighter looks up and sees the incoming attacks, which is when Apollo responds as we see in the last page of my collage. Given the context, I think it's fair to say that these things travelled from the Moon to the Earth in no more than a minute or so, making them incredibly fast. Which in turn speaks to Apollo's speed, as he makes several fly-by's bull-rushing through them and destroying some with his heat vision before they hit the ground, clearly displaying the ability to react to them and arguably outspeed them, tagging them several times as they're in transit.
I actually have 2 things to note about this... One this is pretty fast yes BUT it was noted that his reaction speed was not fast enough to slow him down before he would have gone splat into the very visible force field
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this is only good for Bullrush/Travel speed not Combat/Reaction speed. Now i more than think Apollo is fast enough to keep up with Conner but had the Doctor not saved him Midnighter would have most likely died or been critically injured...
the second, and, probably way more important, thing i want to note is Conner has a similar feat only with a direct comparison to one of the fastest speedsters alive... Bart Allen
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Superboy #5
Superboy was keeping pace with Bart Allen all over the world in race, they also stopped to fight Crime while doing said race. This race involved them zigzagging across the globe several times, and Conner said it was the only way to make the race last even slightly long.
This is indicative of travel speed, combat and reaction speed... as they even fought crime while they were running.
Even if i don't scale to Bart Allen which i could, as Bart wanted to win. this feat is at least impressive enough for Conner to say he can keep up with Apollo's bullrushing speed. The millisecond feat was just a starting point. Conner is as much a speedster as his father or cousin.
btw hilarious side note, but Krypto ends up winning the race... made me facepalm so hard.
Countering Apollo's Brutality
I wanna generalize this because i don't want to necessarily quote your whole section. then I'll quote some specifics if need be
Conner is used to fighting brutal opponents, The list of opponents is Brainiac, Doomsday, Cyborg Superman, and Parasite, and Conner has fought them all and survived because he's just that tough but also because he's able to quickly think on his feat.
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dealing with cheap shots and dirty ploys is something Superboy is used to, and he can adapt and counter. Superboy is different from his father in one way, when pressed he has less of a "No kill" factor. He gets angry and is more than willing to throw his weight around.
as i've mentioned Superboy is a solar battery as well, and it rests and rejuvenates him... This is not a tactic Apollo would want to try and employ against Superboy. Opening a door to the sun, Superboy is fast enough to follow and his Kryptonian physiology would fully allow for him to reap the benefits of Sun. He won't get the huge boost Clark does when he sundips but he'd still come in at around half of that.
Further expanding upon TTK
Conner doesn't necessarily have to strike for TTK to come in to play here
Simply by touching him Conner can send his opponent flying... Knockout, someone capable of fighting evenly with Big Barda, is a high mid/low high tier herself. So Apollo can't risk a lot of hands on time against Conner and he can't risk Conner getting too many TTK shots in also.
it also can be used to block,take apart, and reflect thrown objects. Bypassing the TTK field he has is a pain in the ass.
Conclusion
Superboy is like Apollo so much that it actually hampers Apollo, and so far i think everything i said originally stands true. Apollo and Conner are very close in all areas, Apollo may have a slight edge in striking as you noted but its not as big a deal as Connor's TTK.
I think, with everything that Superboy is, Conner's TTK is the mvp and it comes through like it has time and time before for him
I already explained the reason Superboy died and it had nothing to do with the strike... it had everything to do with Conner already being massively weakened before even attempting it.
in Teen Titans 32 which shows the events that happened at the very beginning of Crisis he was literally dead... like no breathing, CPR needed dead. Superboy Prime basically killed him and they were able to revive him.
Nightwing even noted in the scan i posted that Conner was far from full strength while attempting said feat.
I acknowledge that, but the fact that he died still demonstrates that performing the feat was enough to deal notable damage to him given that it finished him off. By comparison, Apollo accomplished a similar if not outright superior feat with a bullrush and no-sold it.
and while Apollo's may have been slightly more not enough for Superboy to not compete. Superboy's striking can be scaled to near his half father's and when he is weakened he is still more than capable of operating at high tiers
"Scaled near" doesn't really mean much quantifiable, especially since from what I know Conner doesn't operate on Clark's level consistently.
I actually have 2 things to note about this... One this is pretty fast yes BUT it was noted that his reaction speed was not fast enough to slow him down before he would have gone splat into the very visible force field
this is only good for Bullrush/Travel speed not Combat/Reaction speed.
I fail to see why this has any bearing on the feat I showed. In that instance, Apollo had been accelerating for 30 seconds straight travelling in pretty much a straight line, and he also wasn't aware of the durability of the forcefield. All that was said is that he was moving too fast to be stopped, not that he couldn't react, since he probably just intended to keep going through the shield. However, in the feat with the attacks from the Moon, Apollo quite clearly was fast enough to react to them and make several attacks before any of them hit the ground, which clearly demonstrates his combat/reaction speed. Claiming he can't react to attacks he tagged mid-flight because he was moving too fast to be stopped by other Authority members in a completely separate instance makes no sense.
Now i more than think Apollo is fast enough to keep up with Conner but had the Doctor not saved him Midnighter would have most likely died or been critically injured...
Midnighter? I assume you meant Apollo, but as I explained Apollo wasn't aware of the shield's durability and they didn't have time to explain to him, so that makes no difference.
the second, and, probably way more important, thing i want to note is Conner has a similar feat only with a direct comparison to one of the fastest speedsters alive... Bart Allen
Superboy was keeping pace with Bart Allen all over the world in race, they also stopped to fight Crime while doing said race. This race involved them zigzagging across the globe several times, and Conner said it was the only way to make the race last even slightly long.
Scaling to Bart's other feats aside, this feat isn't as good as either of the feats I showed for Apollo. Superboy himself says that they had to zigzag across the globe to make the race last longer than minutes, meaning that their race took a deal longer than a few minutes, and he even later says that they took their time. Even being generous and assuming they did the whole thing in ten minutes and covered the circumference of earth 6 times or so (going off of the visuals in the first page), that would put their speed at around 400 km/s or mach 1200-ish. For reference, Apollo's halfway around the world in 30 seconds feat would require him to move at 667km/s, and the attacks from the moon (using the 1-minute timeframe I said in my opener, which you didn't disagree with) would be moving at around 6400km/s. Over ten times what Conner's feat demonstrated. Whilst you could scale him to Bart's other feats based on this showing, I would also like to mention that using this instance to argue Conner as significantly faster than 400km/s would be contradictory since we know for a fact that he wasn't moving much faster than that here.
Defending Apollo's X-Factors
Superboy is half Kryptonian this is important to remember as Kryptonians are basically solar batteries and Apollo's energy is basically solar radiation
this is from Superboy's early run before he got amped by Johns but even at this point solar energy restores and makes him stronger. If Apollo were to hit him with his solar energy he in all likelihood would not only heal Superboy but also make him stronger especially if he hits him with a moon cleansing blast.
I think this is more hampering to Apollo than anyone wants to admit, Apollo must now fight entirely in in H2H or risk amping Superboy. This will allow Superboy's tactile telekinesis to secure the victory
I don't think that's how Kryptonians work in regards to solar energy. Though they do absorb solar energy yes, AFAIK they don't demonstrate the ability to absorb it mid-fight in the same way or at the same rate that Apollo does. On top of that, since you yourself compared Conner's HV to Apollo's attacks in that they would work the same in this regard:
Now i am no fool... Superboy's heatvision is the same as Supermans and that means its stored up solar energy, which would amp and restore Apollo as well so there will likely be shenanigans at the beginning, however Conner losing his HV is not as big a deal to him as it is to Apollo losing his energy blasts.
Conner is used to fighting brutal opponents, The list of opponents is Brainiac, Doomsday, Cyborg Superman, and Parasite, and Conner has fought them all and survived because he's just that tough but also because he's able to quickly think on his feat.
dealing with cheap shots and dirty ploys is something Superboy is used to, and he can adapt and counter.
Surviving fights against Brutal opponents doesn't somehow negate it as an advantage for Apollo. In particular, since they're both so similar, Apollo's efficient brutality will most definitely give him an edge over Superboy. And given that the battle with Henshaw you showed ended like this:
Adventures of Superman #503
I have no idea why you even showed this fight as if it helps your case. You claim Superboy can and will adapt and counter Apollo's brutality, but to back that point up you're using a fight where Conner could barely control his powers and got stomped by Henshaw?
Superboy is different from his father in one way, when pressed he has less of a "No kill" factor. He gets angry and is more than willing to throw his weight around.
Ok? Conner being slightly more willing to kill than Clark is still miles away from Apollo, who would kill him in a heartbeat. And as I said before, it's more than simply a willingness to kill that makes Apollo dangerous, it's his general disregard for his opponent's health and willingness to abuse that. I mean, can you honestly say that, even if he got angry, Conner would be willing to burn a dude's testicles? Something Apollo did whilst perfectly calm and on a whim? If not then Apollo still has numerous options at his disposal in terms of approaching the fight that Conner wouldn't even consider.
as i've mentioned Superboy is a solar battery as well, and it rests and rejuvenates him... This is not a tactic Apollo would want to try and employ against Superboy. Opening a door to the sun, Superboy is fast enough to follow and his Kryptonian physiology would fully allow for him to reap the benefits of Sun. He won't get the huge boost Clark does when he sundips but he'd still come in at around half of that.
As I said earlier, from what I've seen Apollo absorbs solar energy far faster than your average Kryptonian does, so I doubt this would be anywhere near as much of an advantage for Conner, who is only half Kryptonian to boot. But that said, whilst it remains an option, Apollo does not need to do so to win this battle.
Dealing With Conner's X-Factors
As far as I can see, Conner's TTK is his only real advantage here, but even then I don't think it's enough to let him win.
Conner doesn't necessarily have to strike for TTK to come in to play here
Simply by touching him Conner can send his opponent flying... Knockout, someone capable of fighting evenly with Big Barda, is a high mid/low high tier herself.
Ragdolling someone who wasn't braced and was trying to talk him down isn't really much of a feat. And as for this being used against Apollo, for one I'd have to ask how often Conner does things like this in actual fights, but that aside this would only really be applicable if Apollo was grappling with him. Strikes bullrushes and energy attacks would still be fine since Conner wouldn't really have the opportunity to abuse their contact time as it would be pretty brief.
So Apollo can't risk a lot of hands on time against Conner and he can't risk Conner getting too many TTK shots in also.
Why? As I said I don't think this would work much against strikes (nor have you shown it doing so), and if Apollo keeps on the offensive then Conner won't get much of an opportunity to hit him with big TTK shots. But even disregarding that, the only feat you've shown for his TTK is damaging Black Lantern Kal-L, but not actually seeming to do any lethal damage to him. And scaling BL Kal-L to Clark doesn't really seem fair when Clark literally smashed his head open with a normal punch in the same issue and even Krypto was ripping him apart somewhat. So I fail to see why Apollo can't tank his TTK. As a reminder, Apollo was pretty much unharmed by his continental bullrush, has tanked his own attacks, and has taken hits from his physical superiors, which I don't think Conner is, even with TTK.
Conclusion
My conclusion is much in line with my initial thoughts from my opener. Apollo is superior in almost all areas, and whilst I'm not going to argue a blitz and one-shot or anything, it's definitely enough to make a difference. On top of superior stats and the ability to, in all likelihood, no-sell Conner's HV, Apollo is also a far more brutal fighter who would make use of anything to win a fight, even things that his opponent would consider reprehensible. Lastly whilst I don't see this becoming an endurance battle, should he need to Apollo is also more than capable of changing locations to somewhere with more open sunlight, which would allow him to heal his injuries and refill his energy reserves far faster than Conner would.
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