How powerful do you want Superman to be portrayed as?

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

I'd say Superman can be as powerful as the writers want him to be, with a few conditions:

1. Superman must have very clearly defined limits to his durability, strength, and superpowers in general, his REAL limits, no "World of Cardboard" speech showing he's been holding back the whole time. Demonstrate in the first couple issues, or episodes, or whatever "This is what Superman can do, and that's all he'll ever be able to", and STICK TO THAT. No jacking up Superman's strength so he can push planets around if he couldn't before, no tanking a nuclear bomb after he can barely handle a regular ballistic missile, and most importantly of all, don't just give him new powers out of the blue. Confront Superman with something and have him use what he can already do to get around it, with some ingenuity on the side if necessary, don't give him more to get out of the situation. Don't try to justify it with some hack spur of the moment explanation either, like "this villain just killed Lois! SUPERMAN MAD!!!" or whatever, at least if it hasn't been established already that being really really pissed off increases his power. At the very least fall back on that explanation barely at all, and not to such an extreme extent it invalidates those previously established limitations, more like "I could lift 50 pounds before, now I'M MAD and can lift 52," keep it plausibly within the limits.

If the writers want to jack Superman up or give him new abilities, JUSTIFY IT. Show him working on discovering new powers, show him pushing around moons to work his muscles up, whatever, and then go through the process of clearly defining what Superman can do all over again. Also, if possible foreshadow just how powerful Superman can potentially get long before, have him uncover a database from the spaceship he came in as a baby showing a Kryptonian pushing a planet or something.

Last, keep reestablishing Superman's powers and limitations every so often, so new viewers can know it and old viewers will remember it.

2. Make sure to use Superman's weakness of Kryptonite very sparingly if at all, and don't have villains from Big Bad to mooks rely upon it to be a threat to Superman at all. Kryptonite is a weakness of Superman that was played out more than half a century ago, and it has always been a pretty pathetic and poorly used weakness anyway. Kryptonite is one of those weaknesses which really should have become like say, Power Girl's weakness to natural materials, one of those weaknesses that was ignored and dropped entirely not long after it was introduced simply because it was so incredibly stupid. Particularly because Kryptonite is one of those weaknesses that should have been extremely rare but pops up pretty much everywhere now, defeating the point of a weakness to begin with. The magic weakness is much more reasonable since Superman isn't a magical character himself, but it would be much more effective to simply have magic be something that can enhance or innately make the beings that use it as strong or stronger than Superman himself.

Speaking of Superman's weaknesses, don't ever, and I mean even once, have the villain be a threat only because they threaten Lois, the Daily Planet crew, or any random innocent. Sure, the writers can still have the villains threaten these, but don't have the only reason the villain is even an issue is because they threaten these people. It's just passing the buck on to someone far weaker than Superman and it just cheap and extremely terrible lazy writing. Have the villain do this but also be a real physical threat to Superman on their own, without needing Kryptonite either. It ramps up the tension a thousandfold to do this and makes it so much more plausible that the ones being threatened could actually die, especially if they are some no named nobody instead of a long established named character who we all know will survive (or will get revived/retconned if they actually DO die).

3. Probably what is easily the most important of all: Make the villains Superman's equal if not somewhat exceed him, both combatants must be able to defeat each other in a straight out, no holds barred fight where both are fighting at their best. I am talking physically not just mentally here BTW, though both is preferable the former MUST be there. If Superman can push around planets, give say Lex Luthor a Supersuit that can do the same, if not be able to push around even bigger planets. If Superman can turn back time to reverse the damage the villain can do, give the villain the ability to either time travel as well to try and prevent it, or prevent Superman from using said power under most circumstances. Mooks too not just the Big Bad, Superman likely can still take Mooks by the hundreds, this is the very nature of the Mook, but each individual ones still needs to be powerful enough to cause at least a little damage to Superman on their own, thus potentially killing him in numbers otherwise there is no point in their existence. The Mooks acting as a distraction for each other of the Big Bad so they can commit villainy doesn't work as a justification for weak Mooks that can't actually hurt Superman either, for the same reasons as threatening a weak character to create a threat to Superman on it's own doesn't work.

In a video game context this would mean a Superman game where the Mooks are a bunch of robots with super strength and durability and/or sci-fi tech weaponry that can hurt Superman, heavily mutated human freaks that can use a combo of powers, warlocks and witches that can use their magic to reach Superman's level, aliens with comparable strength and durability to Superman, and so on and so forth, doing the same for the main Supervillains.

Sorry if that got ranty, I'm just so sick of Superman never reaching his actual potential as a character and people even actually DEFENDING the way he's been. Superman is easily among one of the worst characters in all of fiction and could be SO much better it's beyond belief.

Animated Series Superman and Snyder Superman so far are no where near as ridiculously powerful as Silver Age Superman who destroys whole Solar Systems by sneezing

Sorry for being pedantic, but Superman destroying a solar system with a sneeze was actually caused by Mr. Mxyzptlk, who can rewrite reality at a whim so it's not actually a feat of Superman.

Was that also the case when Superman pulled whole planets, each of them tied to a chain?

 

[immortalfrieza]

Was that also the case when Superman pulled whole planets, each of them tied to a chain?

As far as I know, no, but the solar sneeze was definitely Mxyzptlk.

 

[Agema]

Because again I feel everyone here and beyond thinks any reasonable adaption is impossible when it comes to Superman because he's "So powerful be breaks whole planets and fights Gods" Even though in all his portrayals Superman has never always been consistantly god level powerful.

Maybe not, but Superman is fundamentally shite because he's sufficiently super-powerful that no opponent is credible unless he/she/it has got a lump of kryptonite handy.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Because again I feel everyone here and beyond thinks any reasonable adaption is impossible when it comes to Superman because he's "So powerful be breaks whole planets and fights Gods" Even though in all his portrayals Superman has never always been consistantly god level powerful.

Maybe not, but Superman is fundamentally shite because he's sufficiently super-powerful that no opponent is credible unless he/she/it has got a lump of kryptonite handy.

Then create villains that can rival him.

 

[MrCalavera_v1legacy]

Because again I feel everyone here and beyond thinks any reasonable adaption is impossible when it comes to Superman because he's "So powerful be breaks whole planets and fights Gods" Even though in all his portrayals Superman has never always been consistantly god level powerful.

Maybe not, but Superman is fundamentally shite because he's sufficiently super-powerful that no opponent is credible unless he/she/it has got a lump of kryptonite handy.

Then create villains that can rival him.

That sounds like a recipe for Drangonballsaster.

 

[immortalfrieza]

That sounds like a recipe for Drangonballsaster.

Funny you should mention Dragonball, because I'd say Goku is a case study in how to make a character powerful, even absolutely insanely ludicrously powerful, and yet not be overpowered.

Step 1: Goku starts out superpowered compared to the average human being in real life, but not significantly so. He's just barely more than bulletproof to fairly low powered bullets and just strong enough to crush boulders slightly bigger than he is.

Step 2: Goku is pitted against opponents that can beat him at that level. Yamcha can match him blow for blow up until Master Roshi's training while Pilaf has the tech and ordnance to be able to beat him at this point. Later on he fights Master Roshi himself, the Red Ribbon Army, Mercenary Tao, King Piccolo, and so on. The occasional "WOW!!! Look how powerful Goku is now!" fights like against most of the Ginyu Force aside, villains not only keep up with Goku but surpassing him to at least some extent, meaning he has to keep pushing.

Step 3: Goku trains and fights constantly and in increasingly extreme ways, justifying his growth in power over the series. Goku rarely grows massively more powerful out of the blue and when he does it's been established beforehand (i.e. Kaioken, Zenkai, the SSJ legend). Again, his enemies keep up with this, so Goku manages to stay on the level despite both these things happening.

Step 4: Have the supporting characters do the same and keep up to some extent. The result being that they manage to still be useful, and give the implication that Goku lives in a universe where anyone in it can eventually attain his level of power if they train hard enough for long enough. Even those with the least innate advantages, the human characters, manage to hold out being useful to the story for an impressively long time compared to most other series.

Superman's issue is that the writers love to just jack him up more and more, making him stronger and giving him more superpowers anytime he's ever faced up against a threat that can actually beat him, very rarely with any justification. That, and the rest of the DC Universe has overall a really low number of supervillains and superheroes that can come anywhere close to Superman's level of ability, especially as it keeps increasing. This is why the vast majority of villains have to pull out Kryptonite or Red Sun Radiation or just take his powers away completely in order for Superman to be threatened at all. If you are a writer and have to take away your protagonist's abilities to be able to threaten then you are an awful writer.

It doesn't help that Superman shares his universe so many other heroes and villains that not only don't come close to Superman's level, they are deliberately kept from increasing their power much further than they started as if at all, despite being easily possible. Batman, for instance, started as a Crazy Prepared Badass Normal Genius Detective, but at the end of the day he's a normal man, relatively speaking, and has stayed that way. With all the villains and heroes with sci-fi tech, reliable and effective mutagens, magic, etc. logically Batman should have become a cyborg/wizard/mutant/whatever that could defeat a normal man like the Joker by breathing too hard in his direction decades ago, but he hasn't because the writers want to keep things on a human level... in a universe where people like Superman exist. As a result of the rest of the relevant universe not keeping up with Superman he ends up marginalizing the rest of the characters and making it so that with the vast majority of plots we're left thinking "why doesn't the hero just call Superman to clean up the plot in 10 seconds?" Occasionally they justify this, but the vast majority of the time they really don't even bother, and they can't most of the time because it requires quite a lot of inventiveness with this kind of situation.

 

[PapaGreg096]

Because again I feel everyone here and beyond thinks any reasonable adaption is impossible when it comes to Superman because he's "So powerful be breaks whole planets and fights Gods" Even though in all his portrayals Superman has never always been consistantly god level powerful.

Maybe not, but Superman is fundamentally shite because he's sufficiently super-powerful that no opponent is credible unless he/she/it has got a lump of kryptonite handy.

Again he has a Rogue's gallery where people take him one on one

That sounds like a recipe for Drangonballsaster.

Superman's issue is that the writers love to just jack him up more and more, making him stronger and giving him more superpowers anytime he's ever faced up against a threat that can actually beat him, very rarely with any justification. That, and the rest of the DC Universe has overall a really low number of supervillains and superheroes that can come anywhere close to Superman's level of ability, especially as it keeps increasing. This is why the vast majority of villains have to pull out Kryptonite or Red Sun Radiation or just take his powers away completely in order for Superman to be threatened at all. If you are a writer and have to take away your protagonist's abilities to be able to threaten then you are an awful writer.

That hasn't happened in decades we are past the point of Silver Age Superman

 

[Cicada 5]

That sounds like a recipe for Drangonballsaster.

Funny you should mention Dragonball, because I'd say Goku is a case study in how to make a character powerful, even absolutely insanely ludicrously powerful, and yet not be overpowered.

Step 1: Goku starts out superpowered compared to the average human being in real life, but not significantly so. He's just barely more than bulletproof to fairly low powered bullets and just strong enough to crush boulders slightly bigger than he is.

Step 2: Goku is pitted against opponents that can beat him at that level. Yamcha can match him blow for blow up until Master Roshi's training while Pilaf has the tech and ordnance to be able to beat him at this point. Later on he fights Master Roshi himself, the Red Ribbon Army, Mercenary Tao, King Piccolo, and so on. The occasional "WOW!!! Look how powerful Goku is now!" fights like against most of the Ginyu Force aside, villains not only keep up with Goku but surpassing him to at least some extent, meaning he has to keep pushing.

Step 3: Goku trains and fights constantly and in increasingly extreme ways, justifying his growth in power over the series. Goku rarely grows massively more powerful out of the blue and when he does it's been established beforehand (i.e. Kaioken, Zenkai, the SSJ legend). Again, his enemies keep up with this, so Goku manages to stay on the level despite both these things happening.

Step 4: Have the supporting characters do the same and keep up to some extent. The result being that they manage to still be useful, and give the implication that Goku lives in a universe where anyone in it can eventually attain his level of power if they train hard enough for long enough. Even those with the least innate advantages, the human characters, manage to hold out being useful to the story for an impressively long time compared to most other series.

Superman's issue is that the writers love to just jack him up more and more, making him stronger and giving him more superpowers anytime he's ever faced up against a threat that can actually beat him, very rarely with any justification. That, and the rest of the DC Universe has overall a really low number of supervillains and superheroes that can come anywhere close to Superman's level of ability, especially as it keeps increasing. This is why the vast majority of villains have to pull out Kryptonite or Red Sun Radiation or just take his powers away completely in order for Superman to be threatened at all. If you are a writer and have to take away your protagonist's abilities to be able to threaten then you are an awful writer.

It doesn't help that Superman shares his universe so many other heroes and villains that not only don't come close to Superman's level, they are deliberately kept from increasing their power much further than they started as if at all, despite being easily possible. Batman, for instance, started as a Crazy Prepared Badass Normal Genius Detective, but at the end of the day he's a normal man, relatively speaking, and has stayed that way. With all the villains and heroes with sci-fi tech, reliable and effective mutagens, magic, etc. logically Batman should have become a cyborg/wizard/mutant/whatever that could defeat a normal man like the Joker by breathing too hard in his direction decades ago, but he hasn't because the writers want to keep things on a human level... in a universe where people like Superman exist. As a result of the rest of the relevant universe not keeping up with Superman he ends up marginalizing the rest of the characters and making it so that with the vast majority of plots we're left thinking "why doesn't the hero just call Superman to clean up the plot in 10 seconds?" Occasionally they justify this, but the vast majority of the time they really don't even bother, and they can't most of the time because it requires quite a lot of inventiveness with this kind of situation.

Batman actually ''didn't'' start out as a Crazy Prepared Badass Normal. Originally, he was just in a Halloween costume who was good at martial arts and detective work and only fought criminals with a certain gimmick. Hell, Poison Ivy and Killer Crock didn't even have super powers in their debut. It wasn't until Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns that "Batman can beat anyone because prep time" became a thing. And him being human hasn't stopped him from taking on the entire Justice League and winning.

 

[Cicada 5]

I like the Animated Series version, where he isn't actually any less powerful than his other portrayals, but he doesn't know that.

Like, he doesn't know that he doesn't need a space suit, at least to start with, because how could he? He doesn't know he'll be fine if that bomb goes off, because he's never been in an explosion that big. He doesn't know how fast he is, because he's never needed to move that fast, etc. Sure, he could've stopped that plane in midair faster, but it seems hard and he doesn't have to. That's why all his saves look like they come down to the wire: he doesn't know his own power.

And then his growth as he leans into just how powerful he is.

This is the essence of what makes Superman a great character.

You and I know what his stats are, but in a world that can fracture by your sneeze, you dare not do anything.

Fear of yourself. Never, ever relaxing because you don't know what will happen if you do. Holding back the rage and the fear that you can never explore once because you might stamp so hard that the very Earth would split in two. How is that a boring character? Someone who will only know trials and tribulations, alienation from all because no one can quite get what it is like to be you. How you can never turn it off or look to anyone for guidance.

And because of that... everyone looks at you as a savior and a devil at the same time. This is why I hated that Batman Vs Superman came so early. I get why Man of Steel is what it is. Instead of having the honorable, courageous Pa Kent that the comics had, the DCCU had ***** Pa Kent who just told Clark to run until the perfect time.

Giving Superman one movie to actually deal with the dichotomy of being truly alone in the Hero and Villain duel role this world placed him in would have done wonders. To explore his actual psyche instead of showing it to us and going "Yeah... that must suck... Now let's focus on Batman because you all think he's cooler!"

You mean this honorable and courageous Pa Kent?

Snyder isn't even the first one to do that version of Jonathan Kent either.

He also acted the same way in Smallville.

Most of what people complain about in Snyder's DCEU films have precedent.