Who is really the most powerful DC superhero?

[Trekker4747]

i like Batman...but man, his fan-aura has just grown to insane levels the past ten years or so.

Indeed.

I mean Batman is great, sure. But still he's still a mortal, ordinary man. He's completely at a huge disadvantage when put up against pretty much every hero in both the Marvel and DC universes. He accomplishes a lot with what he has, but still he's a mortal man.

A 'roided luchador managed to defeat Batman, it took a powerful being a long time of pummeling Superman until his Solar energy was used up to defeat Superman. There's no contest here.

 

[Scout101]

Yeah, I don't get that one. Doesn't really matter how smart Batman is if Superman can vaporize him just by looking at him, does it?

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I agree. If Superman had wanted to kill Bats in TDKR, even at 1/100th his normal power-level, he could have from the get-go by any number of means.

 

[Trekker4747]

It's like in that cartoon clip above, in the end I believe Batman end up "winning" but only through the help of Krypto (Superman's super-powered dog) and the suit Batman is wearing he got from the FoS and that is made of Kryptonian materials.

Batman his being bitch-slapped into the skyscraper because of the suit, had he been in his normal outfit he would have ended up being a really tough job for the window washers the next morning.

 

[Set Harth]

I agree. If Superman had wanted to kill Bats in TDKR, even at 1/100th his normal power-level, he could have from the get-go by any number of means.

I love the part where he can tell Bruce is still alive at the funeral but decides to play along.

 

[the G-man]

Batman is, and has been, my favorite superhero [if not favorite fictional character] since approximately 1966.

That being said, people who argue he's more powerful than Superman are delusional.

Furthermore, much of the appeal of Batman is that, while he is a remarkably talented detective and athlete, he is still human.

 

[Broccoli]

The whole Batman Vs Superman things is funny to me because it makes Superman out to be a moron...which he isn't...I always thought Supes was an intelligent guy...and given his abilities...

Thing is that Superman holds back his punches. He knows how powerful he is, so he restrains himself. Wasn't there a line in the Hush storyline where Batman admits that if a mind-controlled Supes wanted to kill him, he'd be dead already.

It depends how powered-up The Flash's brain has become...He could always stop by the library or (more likely) the FBI/CIA/etc. headquarters and read-up on bomb-defusing techniques.

Flash #1 written by Geoff Johns had Flash accidentally destroying an apartment building. To fix the problem, he ran into the library, read everything he could on construction and building materials, and ran back to rebuild the apartment. It was stated that cramming info like that only lasted for a short while before it was gone.

Flight - flying between solar systems in seconds?

Superman can't fly between solar systems.

His power depends on Earth's sun. That's why Jor-El didn't have superpowers and why Superman needed a ship to go to the presumed vicinity of Krypton.

There was a storyline from the early 90s where Superman exiled himself and was flying around the cosmos. He most definitely left the solar system and his powers remained in tact.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Byrne's explanation was that Supes body stored solar energy like a battery, and therefore he might well make it from one system to the next.

He also offered a relatively implausible suggestion that something in the radiation of red stars literally drove the stored energy out of Clark's cells. Hmmph.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

The only difference between red starlight and yellow starlight that I'm aware of is simply that the wavelengths of the photons comprising it are distributed differently.

 

[Silvercrest]

Flight - flying between solar systems in seconds?

Superman can't fly between solar systems.

His power depends on Earth's sun. That's why Jor-El didn't have superpowers and why Superman needed a ship to go to the presumed vicinity of Krypton.

There was a storyline from the early 90s where Superman exiled himself and was flying around the cosmos. He most definitely left the solar system and his powers remained in tact.

He didn't fly between systems, he used an experimental teleportation belt that he got from the Omega Men (I think) during Invasion!.

And he was shown to get progressively weaker as he went. He was always still "super", but he had a harder and harder time coping with the things he encountered. Toward the end, he was repowered with the help of a yellow sun and the Eradicator, and there was a noticeable difference.

 

[Icemizer]

Plasticman, people. He is the most powerful being in all the DC universe.

 

[Trekker4747]

The only difference between red starlight and yellow starlight that I'm aware of is simply that the wavelengths of the photons comprising it are distributed differently.

And in the case red sunlight is actually "more powerful" than yellow. But it's not the light Superman gets his powers from it's something in the radiation but who knows, it's all deus ex machnia anyway.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

A 'roided luchador managed to defeat Batman,

After having an at the time sick batman face off with all of his enemies over a long period of with him having very little sleep. Every other time bane and batman have fought bat's kicks that 'roided luchador's ass.

 

[DarthTom]

He has many times, but Luthor keeps coming back and that really seems to be his advantage over Superman. That and the creative methods that Luthor comes up with in order to pose a challenge to the man of steel.

Where Superman has limits, Luthor has none and that serves him in the sense that he will do whatever is necessary to defeat Superman. On the other hand, Superman has to work within the confines of his rules which usually work against him because the likes of Lex Luthor know that Superman won't kill them and they use that to their advantage.

Luthor strength as Superman's arch enemy is that he's more than willing to put civilians, even children, in harms way.

 

[Professor Zoom]

I think the answer to who is really the post powerful DC superhero can only be Ambush Bug.

He knows it's all fiction ....

 

[Snaploud]

It depends how powered-up The Flash's brain has become...He could always stop by the library or (more likely) the FBI/CIA/etc. headquarters and read-up on bomb-defusing techniques.

Flash #1 written by Geoff Johns had Flash accidentally destroying an apartment building. To fix the problem, he ran into the library, read everything he could on construction and building materials, and ran back to rebuild the apartment. It was stated that cramming info like that only lasted for a short while before it was gone.

Yep. Though, I think one of the Flashes (or Kid Flashes?) had the ability to retain that information long-term.

 

[WRStone]

The most powerful DC super-hero? Superman. Period.

So far, only Justice League has gotten the character right in over 20 years:

"I feel like I live in world made of cardboard, always having to take never to break anything -- to break someone. Never allowing myself to lose control -- not even for a second! -- or someone could die.

"But you can take it, can't you big man? What we have here is a rare opportunity for me to cut loose and show you just how powerful I really am."

Dakota Smith

 

[Myasishchev]

The only difference between red starlight and yellow starlight that I'm aware of is simply that the wavelengths of the photons comprising it are distributed differently.

Correct. Suns come sorta close to being blackbody radiators. Red stars and yellow stars are different, of course, but "red solar radiation" isn't really qualitatively different; red stars still produce ultraviolet, x-, and (iirc) gamma rays, just less of them.

The only difference between red starlight and yellow starlight that I'm aware of is simply that the wavelengths of the photons comprising it are distributed differently.

And in the case red sunlight is actually "more powerful" than yellow. But it's not the light Superman gets his powers from it's something in the radiation but who knows, it's all deus ex machnia anyway.

Incorrect. A yellow star is emitting somewhat more intense radiation than a red sun. Hotter star is hotter.

What's weird is that red suns introduce a lot of problems for Krypton not related to superpowers. Like, if it's around a red giant, they just don't even exist. It's stupid. (It's a plausible extinction event, but I'm pretty sure even the most conservative Science Council might notice all the oceans evaporating and the entire sky filling with the fiery death throes of their god.) It's surely not around a red supergiant. And if it's around a red dwarf, and it's a proper planet, and it's well-insolated like Earth, it's tidally locked. If it's a moon around a tidally locked jovian, it's not a planet.

I think Rao is supposed to be a basically Sol-sized red star, which doesn't make sense unless it was artificially cooled. So here's a stupid astronomy question: would throwing a super-jovian into a G-type, Sol-style star reduce its surface temperature for any appreciable amount of time? I guess you could also interfere with the fusion process in some way but I don't think that would actually do anything about the surface temperature for literal epochs. (This is despite what we learned in Star Trek Generations, otherwise the most scientifically literate film ever made.)

I've also seen some talk of Superman under a blue sun. What about Superman under the accretion disk of a black hole? If yellow sunlight is good, and ultraviolet sunlight is better, x-ray sunlight must be the best, right? Bonus points: Soundgarden reference. Awesome.

 

[Mr Silver]

Yeah, the whole yellow/red sun concept wasn't built to stand the test of time because as society became more scientifically, the more people who notice the obvious flaws in the source of Superman's powers.

I personally like to think that a yellow sun's radiation is of a completely different type (a fictional type that is nothing like that known to the Sol system) to that of a red sun like Rao. The proximity to a yellow sun alters a Kryptonian's genetic structure and the radiation itself acts as the fuel that provides the energy needed to pull off such abilities. A Kryptonian can't use the abilities outside of a yellow star system for very long because energy is used so rapidly - perhaps just restraining one's super strength and speed is energy consuming.

Rao's radiation doesn't have any effect in refuelling the energy required for super Kryptonian abilities and it might even be that the proximity re-alters a Kryptonian's genetic structure back to it's original parameters. I mean what was stopping the technologically advanced Kryptonian's from creating an artificial yellow sun and using the radiation to make them superhuman? It's got to be that Rao (and perhaps other red sun's) negates the abilities provided by the radiation of a yellow star like Sol.

Whilst Humans and Kryptonians are almost physically identical, I doubt that Human exposure to a red sun would cause any super effects. I think that Kryptonian DNA is very different to Human DNA at the molecular level and Kryptonians have several genes that Humans lack - necessary for the super abilities to function.

ETA: I think this can also explain how Kryptonite works - direct exposure to the element temporarily causes a Kryptonian's genetic structure (or at least part of it) to revert back to it's original parameters and at the same time it emits lethal quantities of radiation. As soon as the element is out of exposure range, the radiation from Sol restores the genetic parameters.

 

[Broccoli]

It depends how powered-up The Flash's brain has become...He could always stop by the library or (more likely) the FBI/CIA/etc. headquarters and read-up on bomb-defusing techniques.

Flash #1 written by Geoff Johns had Flash accidentally destroying an apartment building. To fix the problem, he ran into the library, read everything he could on construction and building materials, and ran back to rebuild the apartment. It was stated that cramming info like that only lasted for a short while before it was gone.

Yep. Though, I think one of the Flashes (or Kid Flashes?) had the ability to retain that information long-term.

I think Bart Allen boasted that he read every book in the library and remembered everything.