Defining Superman's powers for reboot!

How does being under a class 100+ make you a wimp? Batman is a non-superpowered type, so would you consider him a wimp?

I think you're missing the whole point. Of course Batman has no super-powers but he's NOT a wimp by NORMAL human standards. Superman, though, should be the 'strongest one there is' (sorry Hulk). The power levels that you want to give Superman would probably fall more in line with the way Siegel & Shuster originally depicted the character. Should Superman also leap 1/8 of a mile now also, or leap over tall buildings but NOT fly? Should he ONLY be more powerful than a locomotive (but just barely)? And although the 'Golden Age' Superman was originally pictured at those levels, DC did eventually make him more powerful, although that was in more recent times as well, AKA 'Earth-2 Superman'.

I think that after the DEBACLE that was 'SINGERMAN STINKS', the LAST thing we need is a 'depowered' Superman. Interesting thing there though. Singerman was so weakened that Luthor & his fairy goons gave ol' BJ the 'shaft', but then he turns around & lifts an ENTIRE CONTINENT of Kryptonite into space! How much must THAT have weighed? Probably FAR more than the strength levels being discussed here. Now SUPERMAN could probably lift an island like that size but 'SINGERMAN' lifted one made out of KRYPTONITE! So Bryan 'BS' Singer needs to learn the art of story-telling because that IS BS. No, for the reboot, depict Superman as he SHOULD be depicted, which maybe should be more like what John Byrne tried to show in his version? But whether 'TPTB' actually do that is another story. It would be nice to have a version where Jonathan Kent actually gets to LIVE for a change!

Non I agree I def would like to see jonathan kent alive while clark is superman for a bit. Then maybe down the road he dies. That was one thing I did enjoy about the lois and clark show with the kents alive and we got to see how his dynamic was with his parents. As for powers hopefully they will make him do good feats of action and depict his powers in the right manner.

Comicbookfan-V2 wrote:Yeah, those are railway/freight cars you talking about but I was actually refering to PASSENGER rail cars! Also, I was only basing Superman's strenght to the weight of a locomotive or more likely a particular one since there are locomotives that have different measures of weight. But we all know that locomotive are design to pull heavy cargo or in this case rail cars. The idea was to have Superman as powerful as a locomotive since one of his tag lines use to be "More powerful than a locomotive" so I also based his strength on how many rail cars (Passenger ones) he can pull!

Read what you typed here, then think about where you went wrong.

And another thing... You can actually do quite alot with a 80 ton strength level infact, here's a list objects you can lift with it starting with objects that weighs slightly less than 80 tons...

A Luxury Yacht, a Military Tank and a 737 Boeing Airliner.

Now here's a list objects that do weigh 80 tons that can be lifted with a class 80...

A Locomotive (That weighs 80 tons), a Car Transporter (With eight cars) and a 757 Boeing Airliner.


How does being under a class 100+ make you a wimp? Batman is a non-superpowered type, so would you consider him a wimp?

Nobody wants a Superman who can "do quite a lot". We want a Superman who is CAPABLE of THIS:



But who doesn't go around doing it 24/7.

Superman in this film needs to remind EVERYONE of WHY he is the "Superhero amongst Superheros".

non_amos wrote:As for the railway cars, without having researched it mind you, but I believe that they weigh FAR more than 20 tons. My reasoning? There was an individual railway car on the tracks at this factory I worked at a few years ago. The weight on the side of the car was listed as 200,000 pounds, which is 100 tons. It had a capacity to HAUL an additional 175,000 pounds, i.e., almost 200 tons! And consider that's just ONE railway car! What about Superman stopping a train with his bare hands as I suggested as being a good save for the reboot? Well, at the strength level YOU suggested, the train would MOW Superman down! Consider, if ONE railway car has THAT kind of weight, what will an ENTIRE train weigh, with multiple cars that seem to stretch indefinitely? At least it SEEMS that way when you're stopped at the railroad tracks.

Not only that, but he isn't considering the multiplied force of the train travelling at a high rate of speed.

With the "Superman" he is advocating, he would derail the train himself with his dead corpse after it smashes into him.

webhead2006 wrote:Non I agree I def would like to see jonathan kent alive while clark is superman for a bit. Then maybe down the road he dies. That was one thing I did enjoy about the lois and clark show with the kents alive and we got to see how his dynamic was with his parents. As for powers hopefully they will make him do good feats of action and depict his powers in the right manner.

The reboot needs to set itself apart from the previous film franchise by all means. One easy way of doing that is eschewing Richard Donner's retarded idea of killing only Jonathan. Or else killing Martha right alongside him. But the idea of killing just Jonathan is fucking idiotic. Kill both or kill neither.

With that I still rather they both be alive.

Okay, after months of thinking things over I think I actually notice some of the previous errors on defining Superman's powers, his strength & speed in particular in which I realize my estimate of Supe's abilities are slightly low probably lower for even Supes himself. For the most part I only wanted Supes to be on a level similar to what he was in the golden age and John Byrne's comic mini series same can be said about the Fleischer cartoons and the DCAU series since they display Superman's abilities similar to those eras in advance. The problem is that I was being too hesitant on defining Supe's level of abilities because in honesty I wanted to see a more properly & natural powered Superman rather than a planet moving powered one!

Which is why I decided to estimate Supe's level of abilities literally from his famous taglines such as being faster than a speeding bullet and being more powerful than a locomotive in which I originally measured Supe's strength & speed being on the same level as those items rather than being above them.

So as a result I permanently decided to estimate Supe's strength level to be 120 tons which puts him into the 100+ class. In edition with this strength level he can pull six passenger cars (Rail) since each of them weigh 20 tons and even lift a locomotive that weighs 120 tons or less.

Also with this strength level he can lift these following objects that weigh less than 120 tons... A military tank, a boeing 737 airliner and a boeing 747 airliner. And these following objects that actually weigh about 120 tons... A diesel locomotive, a steam locomotive, a yacht and a car transporter that holds 12 cars.

And as for his speed, I permanently decided to estimate Supe's speed level to be 761.2 MPH which is the same speed accuracy for Mach 1.

Also I decided to leave out Supe's ability to temporary power boost his strength & speed to two folds since there may not be a need for it.

In edition to these estimates, since we going to have Zod & Faora as the villains in the upcoming film I thought it'll be fitting to estimate their level of abilities as well. As Kryptonians we can expect them to have the same powers as Supes but not necessarily have the same strength & speed level since this may be a good way to differ each party from the other individually and depanding on their original status.

First off, I would estimate Zod's strength level to be 130 tons since he's a Kryptonian general but his speed level would just be 731.2 MPH thus making him 10 ton stronger than Supes but also making him 30 MPH slower than him.

And as for Faora, I would estimate her strength level to be just 100 tons since basically she's female but her speed level would be 781.2 MPH thus making her 20 tons weaker than Supes but making her 20 MPH faster than him.

Of course all of these estimates is just wishful thinking but I'm hoping to see that this is how it will go!

So...... Superman is slower than Iron Man and most military jets?

I know I said this months ago but glad you brought John Byrne up again. He didn't want a 'planet-juggling' Superman & to tell you the truth neither do I because it's well, just absurd & not believable & I also believe one of the things that turned off newer fans as the Silver Age, etc., winded down. It really did make Superman 'unrelatable' because like I said, it was absurd. Sneeze & annihilate an entire solar system? Gimme a break!

Now, with that being said, Byrne still made Superman far more powerful than what you describe. I remember him stating that Superman would be able to lift (over his head) that great pyramid in Egypt, Chaeops or whatever he called it (don't feel like googling it). That is, if it were possible to do so without it crumbling under its' own weight. But the point is, Superman would be that strong!

Hate to burst your bubble but that's far more than 120 tons! Actually I believe that whole '100-ton class' originated with Marvel back in the 80's or so when I believe they tried to 'define' their characters abilities. That class is fine for lesser characters but not so much for characters like the HULK because it severely limits their strength & the Hulk was obviously a lot stronger than that.

Superman certainly is!

Apologist Puncher wrote:So...... Superman is slower than Iron Man and most military jets?

Yeah, that's no good. It's Superman. I thought the unwritten law was that whether it was DC or even Marvel characters, they all came second to Superman's abilities.

non_amos wrote:I know I said this months ago but glad you brought John Byrne up again. He didn't want a 'planet-juggling' Superman & to tell you the truth neither do I because it's well, just absurd & not believable & I also believe one of the things that turned off newer fans as the Silver Age, etc., winded down. It really did make Superman 'unrelatable' because like I said, it was absurd. Sneeze & annihilate an entire solar system? Gimme a break!

Now, with that being said, Byrne still made Superman far more powerful than what you describe. I remember him stating that Superman would be able to lift (over his head) that great pyramid in Egypt, Chaeops or whatever he called it (don't feel like googling it). That is, if it were possible to do so without it crumbling under its' own weight. But the point is, Superman would be that strong!

Hate to burst your bubble but that's far more than 120 tons! Actually I believe that whole '100-ton class' originated with Marvel back in the 80's or so when I believe they tried to 'define' their characters abilities. That class is fine for lesser characters but not so much for characters like the HULK because it severely limits their strength & the Hulk was obviously a lot stronger than that.

Superman certainly is!

I admire Stan Lee for a great many things but one thing I'll probably never totally forgive him for is this "relatable hero" bullshit. I think it plays and plays very well with characters like Daredevil, Spider-Man and other heroes as that was part of their core concept from the get-go. Hell, you can toss the "man out of time" angle for Captain America in there too.

It works in the Marvel universe because those characters were designed to be flawed humans.

But the idea of dialing Superman's powers down strictly to make them somehow more credible always seemed wrong-headed to me. If you simply want to give Superman physical challenges in his struggles, that's one thing. But doing it to earn cred with the audience is fucking retarded and misses the point of what Superman is. We pity Batman, we occasionally identify with Spider-Man and we're inspired by Superman.

Each of those characters has his own identity for good reason.

Byrne decreased Superman's powers primarily to allow for greater challenges and tension in his stories. He made Clark the lead persona in the character's psychology because Byrne reasoned that a guy who never even finds out his true origins until he's at least in his mid-20's won't likely connect much to anything other than the tradition he was raised in.

I could be wrong but I don't think Byrne made those changes to heighten the reader's kinship with Superman so much as make the adjustments he felt were necessary.

It's only been in the past ten, maybe fifteen years that being able to "relate" to characters somehow became the fucking mantra among the pseudo-intellectuals everywhere. Sorry but that's not the end all, be all in fiction. Don't believe me? How many of us can truly relate to Michael Corleone?

At the end of the day, readers aren't supposed to identify with Superman; he's supposed to identify with us.

Father Finian wrote:Yeah, that's no good. It's Superman. I thought the unwritten law was that whether it was DC or even Marvel characters, they all came second to Superman's abilities.

Who wants to see a Superman that gets passed-up by a jet?

Not ME, that's for sure.

Apologist Puncher wrote:Who wants to see a Superman that gets passed-up by a jet?

Yeah, and therefore slower than Iron Man.

No thanks

Father Finian wrote:

Apologist Puncher wrote:Who wants to see a Superman that gets passed-up by a jet?

Yeah, and therefore slower than Iron Man.

No thanks

Okay, lets try this... The idea was to have Supes fulfill one of his taglines which happens to be "Faster than a speeding bullet" is to literally have him being faster than a speeding bullet and since the velocity of a standard bullet speed is 1000 FPS or in mileage 682.1 MPH I decided to estimate that Supe's speed should be faster than that and as I heard even military jets move faster than that velocity which is why I later decided to change the estimation of his speed to 761.2 or Mach 1 but even some people here think thats not good enough!

So I decided to amp up his speed level again this time multiplying 682.1 by 2 which equals to 1364.2 which is definitly faster than the velocity of a standard bullet. So as a result, I'll estimate Supe's speed level to be 2000 FPS or in mileage 1364.2 MPH in which I hope that this sounds much better!

In edition I'll estimate Zod's speed level to be 1264.2 MPH since he should be slightly slower than Supes and I'll estimate Faora's speed level to be 1564.2 MPH since she should be slightly faster than Supes.