HeavenlyDarkDragon

Writers never come to common ground when it comes to Superman mental powers.

It's completely logic that Superman should have psionic powers. Most recently when he fought against Psycho Pirate, he said that Supes had the most powerful mind on Earth, full of psychic power, shining like a star. We even seen on Action Comics, that he has immense mental potencial, when he in seconds processed the information of dozens of worldwide optical and radio telescopes, to form a image of the moment when Krypton exploded. It was said that all of Earth computers working together would have taken years to process that amount of information, and supes did it in seconds.

Sometimes its said that only the most powerful telepaths can influence Superman, but then comes a long a regular telepath and he can also manipulate supes to some extent.

It seems that writers are afraid of making Superman too powerful, but when it comes to villans like H'el, that also was a kryptonian, there was no problem doing it. And their excuse, was simply that H'el had been exposed to more powerful classes of stars.

Looking at how Superman physiology seems to work, all aspects of his physical abilities should be amplified, including what his mind can do. And to make it even more irritating some writers hint that he does have psychic powers, but he just doesn't know how to use them, or he never explored that side of his power.

Actually Superman calls it Heat Vision, not laser vision. But never mind that.

How it works was pretty much a guess work before the New 52. Now DC gave more room to actually guess how it works, seeing that even Superman himself doesn't quite knows how it works.

Looking at the present timeline, we know from Action Comics #2 and Superman Unchained #1, that Superman can see in the entire (known) electromagnetic spectrum. He can not only see from Microwave to Gamma radiation, but he can also emit those same radiations from his eyes.

In AC#2 you can see Superman "fry" all the electronic equipment that was beeing used to torture him using microwave radiation, and in SU#1 you can see him use gamma radiation to disable a kind of nuclear reactor.

Now! If we take all this into account, we can say that Superman heat vision, is nothing more than highly concentrated infrared radiation. Of course by that same logic he should also have laser vision, seeing that light is also part of the EM spectrum. Why he doesn't have it or why he doesn't use the other forms of radiation is anyone's guess.

Another thing that has been speculated and now seems to have been confirmed, is that his powers also have a psychic nature about them.

And you can see this with Earth-2 Superman, that by all accounts seems to have all the same powers has Earth-Prime Superman, but most recently he has shown that he can change the direction of his heat beams, much the same way that Darkseid does with his Omega beams.

If he learn this ability or if it was somehow given to him, is not yet known.

And this it. Basicaly this is how it works. When a kriptonian is exposed to yellow (or other more powerful classes of stars) they gain superpowers, those powers include a high control of EM energies, from seeing in all known EM spectrum, to emit those same energies.

Of course with this knowledge you can ask yourself "Then why does he still can't see through led?" and that my friend is itself a mysterie.

Hope this helped you.

@superguy1591:

Big mistake there. John Lane Kent is Superman and Lois Lane son from a different timeline. Not Superman and Wonder Woman.

The only offspring of Superman and Wonder Woman, was seen in the Kingdom Come conclusion story shown in the Pre-New52 Justice Society of America. Where we see the kids that they both have. Two boys and a girl if I'm not mistaken.

And then on another story when Gog kidnapps Superman and Wonder Woman son, moments after he's born and then travels to the past, this story being a sort of Kingdom Come alternate timeline.

To me Doom was refreshing.

Superman needed and still needs a jump start. And Doom gave him that.

When we see Kal-El talking to Doomsday, he isn't really talking to him but rather the primordial side of Superman. His animal side, unleashed with the help of Doomsday genes.

I've read in some forums people comparing the situation to that of Bruce Banner and the Hulk, and in some ways it's the same thing. Superman is no saint, and all his life he had to sacrifice so much, that now, all is coming up to the surface. If he was really talking with doomsday, there would be no talk whatsoever. Remember, doomsday was created from the genes of the deadliest creatures on Krypton, he was created to be mindless killing machine. He's intellect was that of raged animal. No more.

What this will bring to Superman in the future, I cannot say. Even more so because of "Future's End". When I look at both superman's the one now and the one 5 in FE they just don't look the same, don't act the same, and in my personal opinion, they're not the same.

When I first heard of Superman Doom I thought that the people at DC would do superman what he needed quite some time ago, a mental and physical upgrade.

To me the greatest flaw about superman is that he never searches to discover the full extent of his powers. We all know from other characters, H'el, Psycho Pirate, and now Doomsday, that he's far more powerful that he lets himself be, and worst of all, even he used all of his power that would still not be his full potential, has we've seen through H'el. H'el was the reflection of what superman can be, power wise.

To me Doom could have been a great chance to make the changes, but from what I've read so far, it seems that somehow he's gonna cure himself and will go back to normal.

Basicaly, Doom will be a trip that lead nowhere.

It can only be one character. Brainiac!

From the various versions we've seen, Brainiac was always the villain that in some way or another had a profound effect on Krypton.

Brainiac is always obcessed with being the ultimate life force in the universe. It makes sense that he would want to destroy the competition. Or better yet, have others do it for him.

Zod wouldn't make any sense at all. He's kryptonian, and a military leader, if anything he would try to conquer Krypton not destroy it.

And we know that whoever it was, gave the Dheronians advance technology, so they could destroy Krypton. To me, technology is the key factor here.

If it was Darkseid, he wouldn't go "playing in the shadows", he would try to conquer both worlds. Krytpon and Dheron (Tyrell world).

The only other character that comes to my mind, that could probably want Krypton's destruction would have to be the Erradicator. And that would actually come as a surprise to me if it was. But for that to be so, they would have to change a lot of things about him. Which wouldn't come has a surprise seeing that they did it in the New 52. Poorly I might add.

I'll wait and see.

You got to remember that Superman isn't the character trying to surpass his limits, he's the guy willingly limitating himself, because even he doe he doesn't know the full extent of his powers, more than once he has been seen flying way faster than light.

Well if we were to translate that to how fast he would be in combat, he would be faster than the Flash, the problem is that he isn't the Flash. He doesn't have an inercia-dampening field like the Flash has. And not only that, he's way more resiliant than the Flash.

Imagine him throwing a punch at someone at light speed, or even hypersonic speed, if we account Superman's invulnerabilty, the sheer force of the impact level would be atomic, multiple weapon of mass destruction level of destruction.

So Superman never fights at his full speed, he can't.

So, going back to the question at hand, Superman in a combat situation is has fast has he sees he can be.

You most be talking about a completely different superman.

In DC he's probably the most humble and down to earth characters, there is.

Batman, Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Aquaman and other teammates from JL are way more irritating when it comes to an oversized ego.

Superman is the guy always holding back, the guy that tries to see the good in everyone even when their behavior is far from loyal, look at batman, always paranoid about everything, to the point that he created one of the deadliest weapons in DC, Brother Eye.

And Superman if anything he's full of flaws. Too trusting. He doesn't even knows the full extent of his powers not because he can't do it, he just doesn't want to.

Most recently, we have had villains all saying how weak Superman makes himself.

Psycho Pirate said he had the most powerful mind on earth, that it shined like a star, full of psychic power, but he either didn't knew how to use it or he just never thought exploring that power.

Even Luthor said it himself, during the H'el on Earth stories, that he wondered if Superman was weaker than H'el because he just failed to making himself has strong or if he simply did it on purpose.

Lets see, his weanesses are red sun radiation (not so much has in the pre-flashpoint version), kryptonite with all their variations (although writters don't seem to agree to which point, in some stories K puts him down immediately but in most stories he can handle it quite well), and has to magic, magic is the manipulation of the laws of reality, him being vulnerable, makes way more sense than Superboy having some resistance just because of his telekinesis.

In my experience reading Superman is that writters never come to common ground about how his powers work, what are their limits, and we never see a Superman just curious to find out all he can do, exploring the effects of being exposed to other sources of energies, like blue, white, or even neutron stars. Each writter has to much liberty to make him has powerful has they want him to be. And some times (too much really) that's what gets irritating about Superman. Just in the New 52, Action Comics, Superman, Superman-Batman and Superman Unchained, I've seen to many inconsistencies.