Quite a few people have always said that Martian Manhunter, when he feels like it is far more powerful than Superman, having most of his powers, and even more. Well, it seems like one could say the same for Maxima, only she's the Martian Manhunter to Martian Manhunter's Superman! I'm not usually one to complain about how many powers a character has, but hot damn! Maxima has pretty much won the superpower lottery! Versatility in powers like this is usually reserved for cosmic or magic users, isn't it?

So, does anyone think maybe a modern Maxima should be nerfed a little?

@BlackWind: Any nerfing should depend on where Superman is at to me, and what kinds of stories they want to tell in his book.

On paper, Maxima should be able to defeat Superman, or at least have even odds against him in a super-powered scrap. However, she's different than Doomsday because one of her purposes in Superman stories I always thought was to answer the question of what it would take for Superman to compromise his midwestern family values. Conversely, what would it take for Clark to make compromises for those same values.

Physically, she's the answer to the 'Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex' essay, but at a cost. It's been well established that although Lois is a big part of the mythos, Superman is someone who wants to be a father someday. See how Alan Moore deconstructed Superman in "For The Man Who Has Everything" and how Mongul actually used that against him. Despite not being able to have children themselves, Martha and Jonathan Kent wanted to be parents so bad that at their own peril, they adopted an alien baby that they found in a cornfield. It would make sense for that kind of behavior to rub off on Clark. However, while Clark might actually be someone who would consider adopting just as his earth parents did, it's hard to imagine that he would grow old and let it come to that knowing that he comes from a race facing extinction. The problem for Clark is that no earth woman could handle trying to fulfill that void in his subconscious.

Maxima as a character helps articulate some of these things that are no doubt floating around in the dark recesses of Clark's psyche. In fact, she blurts them out loudly. Compared to Superman, there's nothing about her that is repressed at all. You could also argue that she's being much more honest about this area of her life.

@Switchdoctor: The topic wasn't really about Superman, but whateves.

@BlackWind: She had a lot of powers but she really doesn't use most of them much. She's mostly just a flying brick.

@BlackWind said:

@Switchdoctor: The topic wasn't really about Superman, but whateves.

You asked a question about whether a 'modern' Maxima should be nerfed or not. Girl doesn't exist in a vacuum.

I thought Superman was physically stronger than Maxima....Besides wasen't Maxima meant to be Jean Grey with Superman, Magneto and MM all together or something?

@SandMan_ said:

I thought Superman was physically stronger than Maxima...

Maxima has had a slugfest with Doomsday. She has also duked it out with Superman several times. In one of those encounters, Superman even used his X-Ray vision on Maxima to look for weak spots on her physique to perform Batmanesque pressure point attacks. That's not the kind of thing he does unless he's fighting against someone who's at least in the Kryptonian weight class. And that's all we have in terms of gauging the upper limit of her physical strength. At the very least, she's in their ballpark.

Besides wasen't Maxima meant to be Jean Grey with Superman, Magneto and MM all together or something?

Her background is that she's the apex of a race of warlords who were obsessed with breeding and genetics for thousands of years. Any alien species that they conquered who exhibited particular physiological strength, speed, or power was grafted into their gene pool. That's why her list of powers is so long, and perhaps still to be determined.