Energy blasts from the hands.

give him guns and take away his powers and make him fight demons and make him british

I'd reduce his kryptonite weakness so that he doesn't immediately turn sickly. It should be a delayed response. Other than that theres really nothing else I'd change. I'd maybe make him use his intelligence more often as a skilled tactical and scientist.

1. Give him telekinesis. With his enhanced senses he would be able to affect things on atomic/sub atomic levels, could create force fields.

2. Remove that BS called "super flare".

3. Better manipulation of his energy so that he can project energy blasts from his hands also.

4. Red sun wouldn't remove his powers. It just doesn't charge him like yellow stars.

5. Keep his weakness to Kryptonite.

These are my suggestions.

Under stars like quasars and pulsars, he should have all these and more like molecular manipulation, matter manipulation, intangibility, invisibility, teleportation, telepathy, energy manipulation, psionic powers, TK, force fields etc :D He should create devices emitting radiations from quasars and higher stars like it. When threats he cannot handle with his regular powerset comes, he can use his devices to amp himself and kick some serious @$$.

@mysticmedivh: said Remove Kryptonite weakness.

Make it so the light of all stars empowers him (essentially removing red sun vulnerability).

On top of heat vision and freeze breath, give him ice vision and flame breath like Bizarro.

Give him better manipulation of his solar energy, so that it isn't limited to just heat vision.

Such as ability to expel blasts out of his fists, omnidirectional attacks (akin to solar flare,

but without losing his powers), and manipulate his energy (such as rapid fire, concentrated beams,

energy balls, etc.)

Ability to easily phase or go intangible at will.... damn man that's straight up Silver age, maybe even stronger than silver age, personally I like the post Infinite Crisis Superman power set, still solidly Superman but not over the top.

All these ideas are horrible

Wouldn't mind seeing the Solar Flare back tbh.

Umm

Keep his strength, but dial down his super speed AND flight speed( seriously does every flying powerhouse must be FTL AND FTL REACTION ? -_-)

Keep his extra vision, heat and ice breathe, but give him a small form of TP. Dial down durability a little.

His weakness: Magic, High forms of energy attacks

@ironbart: he has a sonic scream. He just doesn't utilize it often

give him Telepathy and TK

In an ideal world, I would:

• Do away with Kryptonite. Seriously, we're taking as gospel something they came up with so the guy who played Superman in the radio serial could take a vacation? Give me a break. It makes no sense whatsoever.
• Remove his vulnerability to magic or greatly reduce it. As a counterpoint, make him much more knowledgeable about this field which constitutes such a great weakness and therefore a threat to him.
• Remove his dependency from the Sun, from any star. Make Kryptonian abilities the result of exhaustive gene engineering due to the harshness of Krypton's environment.
• Get him back to Silver Age levels on all fields. He is SUPERMAN, how the fuck can anyone believe he would play second fiddle to Batman in any way? Bruce is just a regular human, albeit trained to above peak condition, but a plain ole' human nonetheless. It's insulting.
• "Prime" him.

reality warping stronger than all 5D Imps combined

Even @wf_mxyzptlk agrees

What is it with everyone removing Kryptonite weakness? jeez. Only thing I'd change is Super Intelligence. I don't think he should have that, and at best be only shown to be intelligent.

@saintwildcard: What is it with everyone removing Kryptonite weakness? jeez. Only thing I'd change is Super Intelligence. I don't think he should have that, and at best be only shown to be intelligent....Ya there's alot more support for the silver age powerset than I would have expected in this thread

Remove his weakness to magic. Besides that I don't want to change anything. I just want more consistent showing. More feats which prove he can fight in span of nanoseconds, more Moon Busting Striking Power Feats and more feats which show his planetary durability. To be honest, I won't mind seeing him as strong as Kingdom Come Superman, just give him even better striking power.

He should be able to eat an infinite number of hamburgers

Checks out. It would make for compelling drama.

Would change it so that the source of his powers would be on his red underwear.

Except for the bold this.

Nuclear reactor switched on by the sun

Kryptonite yes

Magic and red sun are not weaknesses

I would make him 1 step above everyone.billy and jonn are below him,and it looks noticeable.

No new powers,just use Torquasm-Vo on telepaths,sonic scream,vibration of molecules for invisibility and intangibility

He isn't superman blue(hehe) so don't give him energy powers,he is the ultimate man of tomorrow,so keep his powers based off normal bodily functions,which they are now,besides flying and heat vision

I'd make him paranormal, a congregation of of magical and scientific like the God Emperor of Mankind but less of douche. Let face, no science or physics can justify his most plot armored moments against things that are literally embodiements of creation older than his entire race. Lets just embrace he's a god like being, both figuratively and literally at least thats what Marvel does with Thor and Herc. He's supposed to be a modern day myth tale to be honest. Trying to apply a genre like sci fi is irrelevant, he's pretty much half fantasy as much as he is half sci fi.

I've thought about this before. Why not have superman have TWO looks like he did in Action Comics 1? Superman had a square jaw and 'regal' features. Clark Kent had an oval face and rounded features like Harold Lloyd. Make that canon. They look different and when he 'changes' into Clark his features change and he loses most of his powers. Clark Kent has no major super powers, similar to Action 1: a blockbuster bomb will cut his skin, no flight or vision powers and heightened intellect but not genius level.
Superman, if he loses his superpowers has 'allergies' to earth drugs. Like Doctor Who will be poisoned by aspirin, possibly killed. In his powered-down state as Clark this doesn't happen, just if he loses all his solar energy. Give him his super-intellect back. Oh, and why can't he combine his arctic breath and heat vision to make HOT breath similar to a hot plasma or force field?
Give him three levels of power.

1 Clark Kent - or Action comics 1
2 Normal levels
3 Pre-Crisis

Explain why he doesn't lose his powers away from a sun as being from the quantum level once his atoms have enough charge.

Solar flare? Cool, but make him (pardon the pun) a super-conductor of solar energy, so that if he is close enough to a star, he can actively channel the energy from it into a beam until the star is totally drained and collapses into a white dwarf. But this drains his powers for several issues from exhaustion.

Reading back on what I previously stated, I would tweak my answers somewhat:

• I would still remove Kryptonite altogether. Previous reason still valid.
• Again, I would greatly reduce or remove his vulnerability to magic and increase his knowledge about it.
• On the subject of his basic power set, I would go back to Siegel and Schuster's original conception of Kryptonians, putting them on par with Kirkman's (Invincible) Viltrumites, and having the more classic Kryptonian power set be the result of extensive gene-engineering so as to survive Rao going supernova.
• Get him back to Silver Age levels on all fields. My previous statement about Batman stands.
• Lastly, I would take the best bits about the Superboy-Prime concept and add them to Superman.

Make him more indestructible than he has been lately, so that making him bleed/scratching him is almost impossible.

Make his super-intelligence and super-science abilities more prevalent.

Make him single with no children.

Make his powers centered almost entirely around telekinesis.

His brain and body emit electromagnetic and/or gravitational waves (if graviton particles actually do exist) which allow him not only to fly, but also form an aura like force field around his body. Now, this force field would not only make him nearly invincible, but would also make it seem as if he had incredible strength, by allowing him to lift incredibly heavy objects telekinetically as long as he touched it.

With this, he would only be able to fly at super speeds, not run. Of course, he would have to have an incredibly fast brain to process all that motion, and which would also give him incredible reaction speeds

He wouldn't actually be super strong or super fast or super durable, but simply his telekinesis would give off the impression that he is.

I would also get rid of his super hearing, which - when even using flimsy, sci-fi theoretical science - makes absolutely no sense. Instead, he would be able to read minds, but not control or communicate with them. Shoot, we even have modern technology that can "read" chemical and electrical signals in your brain.

He would retain his heat vision and freeze breath, by having organs in his eyes that can emit high energy rays and being able to control his inner body temperature.

He would also retain his supervision, instead it would be actual x-ray vision, like in MoS, instead of "see through objects" vision.

Manipulation of solar energy into one power at time. While running he can manipulate his solar energy into giving him super-speed but can't use any other power. He can fly and then manipulate his solar energy into giving him super-speed as well. Other than using flight and super-speed at the same time, no other powers. He can't fly up into the lower atmosphere and use his telescopic sight and his super-hearing to monitor the world, he can either fly, or use his telescopic eyes, or his super-hearing but not all together.

I like him the way he is. At best they can keep the solar flare.

This thread is full of Superman hype. Just give him more consistent feats and showing. Keeping his weakness makes him easier to write and affect him with plot devices when necessary.

• Eliminate his vulnerability to magic.
• Limit his susceptibility to telepathy and other forms of mental manipulation.
• Give him the ability to manipulate the entire electromagnetic spectrum
• Allow him to recharge his energy reserve from any star, regardless of its color.

Give him minor telepathy, fire breath instead of ice breath (makes more sense), a solar flare that does not remove his powers (weaker than the one that does of course) make him slower than Flash (he already is but make it canon) and make him weak to only green Kryptonite no red sun or other types of kyrptonite.

I just think he can have the solar bomb, especially now since he's fused, and I want him to have a Kryptonian rage ability. And also can he have a TK and TP ability yet? It's been teased in the Kryptonian powerset before with characters like Superboy and H'El. Can Big Boy Blue get his?

I'm seeing so many "remove freeze breath" comments but I don't really see a problem with that, especially if they are willing for him to keep gale breath. It's merely the Joule-Thompson effect. If you don't want him to keep freeze breath then he has to lose that too. I think the main problem is also the way it's applied sometimes where the artist makes it seem like he's actually spewing ice instead of rapidly expanding gas. Overpowered feats with it look ridiculous, he's not Iceman so it just needs to be nerfed a little and applied properly. Freeze breathe is not a direct power folks, but a by-product of his ability to intake and super-compress large volumes of gas and it works well enough as it is. It makes more sense once you understand it that way. Ice-vision is tremendously stupid. That's why Bizarro has it.

With that said:

• I'd get rid of red sunlight weakness. His power absorption should just be slower or maybe even make it inert at worst, but that's it. He should be able to be charged with cosmic radiation. This would give him more time for cosmic adventures haha and more time spent away from characters that can seep his competence to make a team as well as more time spent with characters in his own weight class.
• Lower physical strength. All that quintillion mumbo jumbo is pointless when he's going to job to Batman and friends anyway. Writers simply don't know know what to do with such massive power levels and that's a fact. It just erodes the quality of stories. Don't get me wrong he should be extremely fast and strong. He's Superman after all. But artists should stop reading forum battledomes and stay away from giving numbers they don't quite understand.
• In terms of his durability, make it his bio-aura that is completely responsible for that and make it responsive for heaven's sake! He shouldn't just be a large lump of lead walking around that isn't able to physical embrace others nor feel environmental stimulus. It would make so much sense if it were responsive.
  • You touch him lightly and it barely registers so you feel his real flesh.
  • You press a little harder and it responds with higher intensity and more resistance to your prodding.
  • High impacts give the highest response.

He's essentially selectively durable so that a child can embrace him and feel his warmth but a supersonic shell fired from a rail gun can still shatter on him giving some minor discomfort.

• Admit that his sensory powers are extrasensory/psionic and not physiological. Everything is sorted by that. It would then make sense how he could filter through and choose what to hear and focus on or zone out. Nerf them as well. Hearing a watch he gave to Olsen all the way from the Vega star system is ridiculous beyond belief.
• He should not be base human stats even when solar depleted. This one has always bugged me and is a writing fault. It has been stated that kryptonian physiology is different. Even without solar charge he should be physically stronger than a human because of better muscle tissue density, stamina and physical strength output. Not enough to overpower him but the differences between human and kryptonian physiology should be very clear.
• For heaven's sake stop throwing his intelligence away. Needs no explaining. This has little to do with his solar-powered computing speed but rather base intelligence from being a kryptonian. Remove his aversion to technology and self-improvement. I realize this is about powerset but I think that important as well. Sometimes a harder punch doesn't solve the problem and he should go back to the fortress and build things that his powerset cannot handle easily. Superman: Earth One nailed this. Was refreshing to see him be mentally competent as well a problem solver with available technology like his crystalline armour he used so that he could fight in close proximity with Parasite.
• Kryptonite radiation weakness is perfect as it is. If he's some sort of photobiotic creature or electromagnetovore (lol couldn't make up anything better) that is constantly absorbing certain wavelengths of energy then it stands to reason that some frequencies might be toxic. He comes into it's presence, he eats unwillingly and gets poisoned. It's a perfect weakness accidentally made.
• Get rid of the term X-Ray vision. Superman has wide spectrum vision in that he can observe wavelengths all the way from the infra-red to the ultra-violet, that is not even new. I suppose x-ray just has a certain thing to it.
• In terms of magic, Supes should be resistant to the products of magic but be vulnerable to high order magic. This is because all his powers, while dialed up to eleven, are within the realm of the comic's typical physical laws. High order magic is basically reality warping so it's not that he is weak to magic but rather that he has no particular resistance to it. However products of magic should not affect him. Just because a character uses magic to conjure a boulder that will drop on him, doesn't mean it should work. Same for if they generate lightning or fire. If powerful magic is being used directly on him, then all is well otherwise he shouldn't have trouble.
• As some mentioned above solar flare was a bit cheap and weak. I would rather see solar flare at much higher power and used in a cosmic adventure to really cut lose with its potential.
• Improved stamina. Even though there are times when it's well justified, some modern writers use the need for sunlight as too much of crutch. He used to have such high stamina that facilitated cosmic adventures without a yellow sun nearby. Sometimes it's ridiculous when he takes a couple of hard attacks and ends up needing sunlight to heal. Sunlight merely provides energy for his powers. Rapid recovery is part of his powerset. Once whatever injured him is gone he should be using his vast reserves to heal and keep going, but even those vast reserves are questionable. Why not have him be powered directly by The Source period? Some feats are ridiculous even with the sun-dipping like pushing Brainiac's mothership, that was many times the size of the planet, into a black hole. On of the best retcon's for Marvel's Cyclops was having sunlight only facilitate his opening of dimensional apertures and not actually powering the beams themselves. DC has The Source that could easily reconcile any level of power Superman ever has or ever will put out. If the sunlight he absorbs simply allows kryptonians to tap into the source then not only would they have endurance issues better solved to facilitate cosmic adventures but would also back up any ridiculous feats in terms of energy supply.
• Have him be a competent fighter. And I don't mean using mundane martial arts. There is nothing relevant he can learn about fighting from someone at a human power level. After all the years of fighting, he should have very high physical aptitude and that includes combat.

I would make him a low level energy manipulator.

he knows how to travel in time he knows when to kill he can't be snuck up on you can't surprise him lightning doesn't work he's faster than every missiles

you can't seem to get him around Kryptonite he has too many friends who kill you for having it and he's the smartest man alive

and if you ask him if anyone's ever escaped the phantom zone, he says "None before"

Give him back the power to create little clones of himself.

@thehercules: Pretty much all of the stuff I've been reading on this thread aim to make him more powerful - un-writeable, even - without even a passing care for the character's concept. He might have been the Kryptonian Manhunter.

What is Superman, what are the core elements? A newly-arrived escaping a crumbling world, strong American image; intemporal values, fair-play. At the start, he was a super-athlete, having the exact same capacities as we have, except they were boosted by a gravity difference.

Then he suddenly became a proto Sun-Boy. It's about the colour of the sun, you see. Then he moved on to being a living battery, with frost breath etc etc. Still not powerful enough, he is now in the throws of being a cosmic mentalist or something. All of these just to keep him floating as the most powerful individual that can ever exist in DC. But there's worse: this obsession about keeping Superman at the top power-wise makes it that all other DC characters, especially those with the potential to easily be over Supes, are nerfed.

I'd keep the Super-Athlete thing, and add to it mental elements that would affect his self with subtlety, a bit like the little red angry guy (forgot his name at the moment) did, the result of an accidental travel through (insert tech stuff here) while leaving Krypton, that would permit him, among other, to fly, project bio-energy and create around him a "life support" field that would allow him adaptation to a space environment, or underwater etc, like if Superman's mind was like a limited, semi-conscious power ring for himself. He would generate his own power just as we do, except in proportion with his abilities.

On the other hand I would cut off the breath thing, the magic tricks such as time-stopping, and all thing solar-related, such as the chromosoid suns "effect" and all of that admitedly stupid jazz. I would also give him nastier consequences to having or using so much power, instead of the stupid kryptonite stuff, so he would be more relatable.

That's a pretty good written about him, the breathe thing is a little bit crazy, I agree.

His powerset honestly seems perfect to me. If even a bit too varied. He’s supposed to be the archetypical hero, extending his abilities to be in line with Heralds with lots of versatility ruins that image for me.

More emphasis on how his brain is basically a supercomputer. The solar flare should be more controlled in how he expell energy but still takes a toll on him and can't spam like Surfer.

I would stop adding feats he has no business doing.

Remove his superspeed

Remove kryptonite weakness and use instead vibranium weakness

Reduce vulnerability to magic

I wouldn't make any changes. Superman simply needs to be written in a way that takes full advantage of his powers. He shouldn't be tagged by anyone without massive super speed. He should be no selling any strike or blast that isn't at least small city busting (or using energy he's vulnerable to). Plus there's the fact that his learning and planning speed are phenomenal making him an elite tactician.

by removing some its ridiculous fanboys like mortifian

Wouldn't change much, really.

Super Strength - Planet level striking

Super Durability - Knocked out by saturn level explosion. Die with Jupiter and + level.

Super Speed - Can fly MTFTL.

Super Agility

Super Stamina

Super Reaction - Nanosecond Fighting Speed.

Super Senses

-*Super Vision (He also can see the entire EM Spectrum, including invisible things)

Flight

Solar/Super Flare - A glowing aura that would act as a Force Field heating up at 10,500,000 ºC and he can emmit it's Hot energy (similar as IRL Solar Flare) when he punch/kick someone (He can only use it for a short period). (It doesn't depower him)

Heat Vision - Same as he has, but Sun's Core temperature.

Freeze Breath - Very cold, comparable to heat vision.

Eletromagnetic Spectrum Energy Absorption - Bye bye Worldbreaker Hulk (just kidding)

Vulnerability - Magic

(No kryptonite weakness)