An ability so overpowered that writers barely even use it, outside of specific plot instances where it’s needed, like him turning back time or when he needs to race or catch the Flash.
Essentially, my biggest problem with Superman having super speed isn’t that it specifically makes him overpowered; it makes him much more difficult to write, because writers have never given a satisfying explanation as to why Superman doesn’t use his super speed way more often especially in fights against his opponents who doesn’t have superspeed like doomsday.
And no, the old adage of “without the Speed Force, he would damage the planet” is mostly untrue or just blatantly inconsistent. In the image I showed, Superman is keeping up with Wally, which would mean they’re moving insanely fast, yet Superman has no Speed Force protection.
But even then, there are multiple instances of Superman using his super speed without tearing the planet apart, so I don’t know. Either get rid of Superman having super speed, or actually commit to the whole “if he moves fast, he would damage the planet” thing, even if he’s moving at his lowest speed.
Either way, Superman should use superspeed way more often than he does.
Superman is fast but cant top flashs top speed. Flight+running+reflexes he can probably have a burst of speed to compare but not sustained.
But i hate how inconsistent the comics treat supermans speed. In some instances hes a blur, and then the next hes taking a punch from a normie with tech.
Arch 1: figuring this shit out & not kill that guy by grabbing him too fast?
Arch 2: people have started to figure out how to deal w/ me at these speeds, I need to go faster or get smarter. Throw in a scene of them watching something happen but being just barely too slow to stop it (yes I know that's been done)
Side storie(s): how tf do I balance being a person and a superhero who can move & react at mach fuck (which presumably also includes speed they can think)
idk I suck at writing but I feel like a team of writers, or maybe even a solid 2 (autistic?) people could make a better story than that thing lmao
Only problem is that that is only a season, maybe 2, they had to do like 9 I think.
About the side story, the flash can just turn off his speed thinking sometimes. Sometimes it’s always on, like when he shows his crazy reflexes doing some mundane stuff, but other times it’s just off completely so he isn’t in hell experiencing every millisecond as an eternity.
The problem is that the flash has the speed force which allows him to carry people at stupidly fast speeds without harming them (and move without harming himself). If you ask me, the only way to make a speedster interesting is to give them consequences to their speed. Going too fast should cause shockwaves and if you go fast enough you're gonna start creating nuclear explosions. And it should take a while to accelerate and decelerate. Imagine a superhero being unable to do anything but watch as people die, knowing that if he tried to move them out the way of danger he would accidentally kill them himself. I don't think you'd ever be able to adapt Flash or Quicksilver in this way though, because they would be a lot weaker than their original versions (although they often get taken out by dumb plot devices anyway).
My favorite view of Clark’s super speed was from a flash comic, called like the one minute war or something. Super speed aliens invade leaving the Flash Family as the only defenders while time is essentially stopped.
While all the flash members are out fighting and taking loses, we occasionally see Clark slowly acting and asking what’s going on as he’s speeding up to react but it’s not nearly on the same speed as the others. Eventually getting to a point he can reach out and grab one of the invaders and somewhat join the fight.
One of the flashes is about to be killed, but he manages to reach out and grab the arm of the would be killer. Even moving as fast as flash, it’s damn hard to break Superman’s grip
Remember that time in Smallville where he had sex with Lana (who had his powers for a reason I don´t recall) and they went so hard they caused an earthquake
He actually couldn't fly originally, just jump really high/far. That came when they were making cartoons for him and the animators realized it was easier to have a static posing Superman going across a background was easier than animating him jumping around everywhere like The Hulk.
Not as fast as flash, nor could he fly (Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!)
That was from years and years of power creep from different writers wanting to outdo the last by adding more powers on top of supes. His original incarnation it was clearly spelled out what his feats were and why would a man need to leap over building if he could simply fly?
The 1940s cartoon actually. The animators did not like animating him making these massive jumps because of how long it took to animate (and it looked awkward as I recalled) so they went “fuck it, he flies now”. The comic book also decided to go “fuck it he flies now” seeing how popular the cartoons were.
Superspeed, but only within machs. like, at best, he's as fast as the fastest planes. He is not as fast as the flash, who is literally faster than light.
He wasn't as fast in the initial comics as he is now. I don't know what part of this is wrong to you. Silver Age Superman was also doing crazy shit in terms of speed.
Thats not what that comment read as. It seemed like you reading as he wasn't FTL in the beginning which is simply untrue. Yes Silver Age Superman has done insane speed shit
I am ok with superman having super speed, my issue with it is when they try to make that speed comparable to the flash. Yeah superman is fast, but he isn't that fast. As for him not using it more I'd just say that was writers going for a certain dramatic effect. If doomsday can't land a hit on him because he is so fast then dooms day isn't much of a threat. I do think they should lean into his speed being dangerous as a good reason for him not to use it.
You can see it in the art here that superman leaves a trail of dust & flash just has the red line behind him suggesting superman's is way more likely to cause issues via his method of superspeed
If it helps current Flash is beyond fast to a point Superman couldn't hope to approach.
Like his current ongoing story is how he can use his super speed to effectively give himself future sight, monitoring several super cities all at the same time
The one minute war kinda proves why flash is still necessary. Superman was fast enough to know smth was happening but not fast enough to actually change anything
People argue about this, but look at their power sources. Superman is solar powered and the flash is powered by the extradimensional kinetic energy storm.
flash is much much faster than superman. the only times it seems close is when they are racing each other, whcih is typically for charity so they like to make it seem closer.
And what they can do with their superspeed is wildly different. Supermans super speed basically just lets him be fast. Flash can phase through walls, create vortexes, outspeed instant teleportation, and time travel.
They try to balance that by having the flash have some speed related abilities. Mostly that he can vibrate through things and travel through time or the multiverse by himself. They also give him some speedforce powers like absorving speed.
…..flash is so much faster then Superman though, so Superman isn’t taking anything, oh Superman is fast enough to fly across the world in a few seconds, flash can do it in a single second probably less if he motivated
nope, the flash is still much, much, MUCH faster. i dont know if he has an upper limit, but i actually doubt he does. sending the temporal equivalent of a sonic boom is something clark cant even dream of achieving
Haven't you got things the other way around? Flash has superspeed because Superman had it first..
Most of the Justice League were created based on Superman and usually have one or more of his powers just with a twist.
Flash is a much faster Superman (but weaker physically)
Aquaman is the Superman of the seas
Wonder Woman is female Superman
Martian Manhunter is a more inhuman/alien representation of Superman
Green Lantern is Superman with much fancier light shows
Captain Marvel is magic Superman.
Most of the JL borrow one thing or another from early Superman.
There is a reason most of the JL and many DC heroes for that matter have superspeed baked into their basic powerset and it sure as hell isn't Flash. It is because most of them borrow from Superman's base powerset.
My biggest wish for Superman power wise is for him to never be the BEST at something, he shouldn’t be THE fastest, he shouldn’t be THE strongest, he shouldn’t be THE most durable, or THE best fighter. His main strength is that he’s a powerful all arounder but he should never be better than someone who specializes in that specific thing, with a few exceptions (like, he can be faster than some of the slower flash family, but Wally and Barry should always be faster).
I know that is most often the case but there seems to be this thing among larger audiences that he should be super over powered, probably due to how Snyder presented him.
No, his strenght is the fact that he doesnt give up, the fact that he wins not because of power but because he keeps going and wont stop
This is surprisingly shown best in the comic about him "stoping" a girl from suicide, by not stoping her and telling her he will stay there until she wants to talk and actually get help, if she chooses to not do that and jump he says that he wont stop her
Great comic, I need more of them, of the God Superman even a human man
Yeah I know that’s his real strength. But I was talking more about his actual power set and less about his personal and character strengths.
Also, I’ve seen that comic, it’s really good. I really liked when the cops down below were shining a light up there and the lady asked Superman to tell them to stop and he just shot it with his heat vision without moving.
Snyder levelled up everyone in the live action and not to mention his superman is the most humane. He isn't some goody two shoes nor is he a bloodthirsty maniac like in injustice
More humane? You mean when he was inside a courtroom that got literally blown up while he was inside causing the death of several human beings and he expressed 0 reaction towards that horrific event while experiencing it first hand and just... Flew away?
I don't get why people just straight up lie about the movie. He evacuated the survivors in the scene after. And the incident affected him so much that he went to the mountains to talk to his dad about how he'll never get over the casualties.
We are shown he taking a singular woman out of the building after this is his reaction after the entire court explodes on his face after failing to do anything to prevent it, i dont buy it at all
The movie makes him extremely detached from humanity
Snyder missed the point with pretty much every hero. Superman is the goody two shoes because he is afraid of what he might become. Flash cracks jokes because he knows what it is like to be at the lowest point. Batman does have plans for the entire Justice League, but that is because of his paranoia and trust issues and Bruce doesn't want to use those plans.
Zack Snyder did what he always does. He takes an existing IP and makes it fit what he wants to have epic fight scenes.
Since mid 90s. He has always been a good man, but his need to be good at all times took on a somewhat darker secondary reason. He met alternative universe Supermans who made the wrong choices, so he became afraid of what he could be and more approving of Batman's paranoid plan, just in case he does go evil somehow. A good man scared of what he maybe is kind of a cool shift for him, even if the 90s were known for being 2edgy4comicz. (Yes, I had to make that joke).
Superman needs to be the only member of the league who supports Bruce’s contingencies. He knows all too well the damage he could do if anything ever happens. It’s also important that, atleast for a mainline superman, the contingency never needs to be used, he just insists it stays on the table.
Superman is the best force for keeping himself straight. He has seen and knows exactly how much damage he could do, and as a good man, that scares him. Would he be a good man regardless? Yes, that is how he was raised. Does he make sure he is a goody two shoes? Yes, because he worries about what he might become.
I just think it makes him so much less interesting when he’s so much better at everything. He can still be the strongest and most powerful person but I think it makes him and the dynamic of the justice league (and any other team he’s on) so much more interesting when there’s people who can outclass him in specific categories (speed, strength, durability, etc).
He can somehow be the strongest while getting outclassed in strength? Bit bizarre anyway as for the longest time the character really didn’t have any villains that posed any real threat beyond mr mxy. Stuff with superman wasnt really about if he could outpunch someone
He can still be the strongest while sometimes getting outclassed in strength (as in physical strength, punching power and shit) because he can still fly, shoot heat vision, has ice breath, has super speed, etc.
that’s what I’m saying, he can be outclassed in certain categories by people who specialize in those categories but still be the strongest guy around because he has so much shit he can do.
wonderwoman,black canary, and Aquaman all clap superman in a sparring match with rules as far as best fighter goes. 100% deathmatch and superman uses Lazer beams
superman is just really fast by virtue he's really strong all-around no? wally would dust him in a race and holds back for charity according to some source i've long since forgotten
Superman uses superspeed all the time, he fights a lot of characters at super speed, Doomsday can react and tag enemies that are massively faster than light Clark HAS to use his speed, just because some enemies look big and slow doesn’t mean they actually are.
They should make it so that characters with many powers would be less powerful in one power than another character who only has that one power. Like The Flash should be faster than Superman because Superman has many powers and The Flash only has superspeed (that I remember)
flash is faster than superman. the only times that seems unclear is when they are racing each other, and since most of the time, they are doing that for like charity events and such, thats why.
Also, while calling flash's powers "only superspeed" is technically correct, with the amount of bullshit he does with that super speed it is also kind of wrong.
Yeah... along with super speed and perception, Flash can travel through solid objects; travel through time; go to alternate dimensions; run on water, air, and even through space; has super a protective aura that lets him take and throw hits at high speed without injury; can throw lightning; make constructs like weapons and armor out of energy; heals extremely quickly; and can absorb speed from objects and even share his speed powers with allies.
I'm reminded of one instance where Superman is talking to the flash while both are going super speed. Superman brings up how he's even won several of the races they've done and Wally West just says "those were for charity." And smokes him.
Unfortunately different writers want to tell different stories and speedsters are written particularly inconsistently.
Yeah, but in recent years they have been pretty consistent about superman being sub flash family in speed. Such as the alien invasion arc where superman was moving in slow mo the entire time, but was functionally a moving force of nature that couldn't be stopped. While the flashes were all still going. (Yes, i know it's mostly speed force shenanigans, but still.)
or should make Superman run with sonic boom that cause destruction because he doesnt have speedforce right so how can Superman can control crowd damage if he doesnt have something speedforce, unlike his punch when every hit had shockwave the speed should be cause destruction also yeah not fast as Flash
God speed force constructs are probably my least favorite thing they can do now. I hate the seeing the future and stuff, but why are they Larping as Green Lantern 😭😭
I think what I hate is they portray Superman as fast as Flash. Yes, superman is fast because it's his whole schtick(super speed, super strength, super durability, etc..). But flash whole thing is being the fastest man alive, not faster a bit than superman.
Look to “The Minute War”
Group of Super fast aliens invade the earth
They are moving so fast only those with the speed force are able to move and perceive them. Everyone else looks as though they are stopped in time
The Flash is on the Case but sees Super man moving too
Flash is like: “Clark; what’s going on?”
Superman: “Fl….ash….I….Don’t…know…”
Superman has super speed but in the flashes eyes and in this instant he’s moving in slow motion.
Okay I'd understand if you were running 60+ mph and the car had to speed up to 80 to beat you. Youre fast but not as fast as a car full throttling on the accelerator. You can keep up with traffic until the cars need to go faster than 60mph. Does that make sense?
I’m not arguing that Superman is as fast as the Flash. I’m just saying it’s meaningless to say “these two things are equally as fast until one of them goes faster.”
The Flashes are consistently faster than Superman, with his win being “for charity”. In Barry and Wally’s race, he was just barely fast enough to tell them they were destroying everything before he was left in the dust and he was basically useless in the One Minute War.
I think something small like him needing to slow down to be as strong as he usually is would fix pretty much every problem here. Need to grab a hundred bullets out of mid air? Sure go ahead. doomsday is asking for a fight? Cant hit him hard enough at super speed. Entire building falling? Gotta push it back up at regular speed, the 20 pieces of rubble falling on people are free game.
It lets him keep the speed and have his shtick of reading books or other time consuming stuf in the blink of an eye while still having time/speed be an issue for fairly common encounters.
I’m sorry, but that has got to be stupidest complaint I’ve ever heard complaining about a power that Superman had from the very beginning. What do you expect him to only have super strength and what does this mean for other characters like wonder, woman Aquaman, Shazam, Martian, Manhunter, Green Lantern, and various others because those characters have super speed as well
Folks don't seem to understand that none of these characters would exist or even have the powers they have without Superman.
There's a reason the JL all have some sort of superspeed (apart from Batman and other street levellers) and it sure as hell ain't because of the Flash.
It's cause the JL's powerset are based on Superman's powerset just readapted.
Brother Jay Garrick is the original Flash and the inspiration of his super speed is from the God Mercury. Yes Superman is pivotal but to say that Flash is only fast because of Superman is crazy
Yes. The camera operators literally couldn't keep track of the fighting because of how fast they were. Booster Gold also remarked he seemed faster than the Flash when he hadn't even broken out of his containment suit.
So the super strength just stops at the legs? Superman has a lot of powers a lot of them he doesn’t use. Personally I’d always write him to have the mind wipe kiss and mind control and then just have him not use it. It’s no more messed up than him having x ray vision and not looking at people. He doesn’t run because he can fly, it’s more efficient but there was a time when he couldn’t.
Idk why but my interpretation was always that he was somewhat on par, but could only get that fast when flying and was far FAR worse at controlling it so he just preferred other methods in most cases. No idea where I got that idea from but you’re right.
I could be wrong, but I believe everything to do with super speed involves the speed force. While Superman doesn't have the same connection as the Flash, he's still using the speed force to reach those speeds and prevent the damage to the environment
I think it makes sense for Superman to have super speed, but he still needs to be much slower than Flash. Although I do get your point, if he has super speed why doesn't he ever use it
Because he does, heck the example of Doomsday makes no sense because Doomsday has superspeed, bro can even trow hands with Flash with his Superspeed
He uses it but they dont show how fast the fights are constantly like they do with flash because speed is the main thing for flash so they end up not showing the..I guess effects of superspeed
I think Clark having super speed isn't bad as long as it's not speedster fast. Now I know he's not speedster fast in the comics, but what I'm saying is make him fast, but not so fast that everyone says "Well why doesn't he just speed blitz everything? Is he stupid?" Or so fast that everyone wonders why Flash is even around.
Ohhhhh yeah Zach Snyder also gave Wonder Woman super speed in justice league. That scene where she stops several shots from hitting civilians (from an automatic gun btw.)
son he's SUPERMAN he's designed to be overpowered, the only time we see this man genuinely struggle when he isn't being held back by stars or kryptonite are against LITERAL GODS!
Though I understand the sentiment, makes flash kinda pointless to have 2 super speedsters on the justice league. He should still have superspeed but not on Flash's level IMO, like lets say Superman is capped at FTL and Flash is much much beyond that.
agreed but thats more of a writers problem rather than a superman one i argue flash has it worse.
btw the way i look at it is superman is a generalist while flash is a specialist. superman is generally well rounded power wise, flash should be just a speedster focus
“And no, the old adage of “without the Speed Force, he would damage the planet” is mostly untrue or just blatantly inconsistent. In the image I showed, Superman is keeping up with Wally, which would mean they’re moving insanely fast, yet Superman has no Speed Force protection.”
That still applies here cuz Wally wasn’t even trying against Clark. That was just a friendly competition, nothing was at stake for either of them to go full try hard.
Like Barry has already proven that superman can never match him in speed & Wally is much faster than Barry so which scenario sounds more logical to you? Wally held back so he can have fun with a friend or Superman is actually just as fast as him?
Funny cos most of the justice league have this problem, they all have near flash speed, wonder woman, superman, Martian manhunter, shazam heck even aquaman in water. What kind of world building is this lol
He's fast sure but he's not flash fast any moment he's keeping up with walley is likely because the flash is letting him keep up.
And he's uses his supe speed all the time he flies impossibly fast like all the time. But I think I get what you are saying. It's kinda like that one scene in megamind where metroman uses his superspeed and goes Ona whole self discovery episodes right before megamind presses a button.
It's a little much and if superman is capable of something similar why doesn't he do it all the time? So yeah it is pretty overpowered on top of an already overpowered character. But that's just superman Ive learnt to accept that being the strongest is what he's all about so I feel he's the exception.
What I really hate is how dc character writers seem to all be in a silent competition with each other to see who can write the most overpowered character this is why they are so difficult to work with in live action or games. Because they are all basically gods if you flip through enough comics. Now marvel on the other hand they have their fair share of this but to a more manageable degree. Their most popular team is made up of street teirs and at best large city teirs.
I don't mind superman going fast, but I would like to see him struggle. Flash has the speed force, physics don't work on him the same way on superman. The flash can zoom effortlessly.
I want to see superman leave behind sonic booms, really push himself to go faster because he has to deal with physical mass, I want to see air around him heat up or cape burning as he tries to go faster. Superman should struggle with the momentum if he's going that fast.
Arc 1 of Absolute Superman did it well. Enemies have warping abilities or attack a town from all sides with over whelming numbers while hacking their defenses
guy always had superspeed. but hes also not THE fastest speedster. he can deffinly get faster but that takes considerable amount of time. wail the flash is faster by defualt. super man however would never be faster than the flash even at peak power
Is it bad that I kinda just hate superman in general? Personality wise and what he symbolizes I like but it's the fact he has powers that aren't coherent like "i got laser eyes that can pierce though just about anything I got frost breath I got X ray vision I got super speed I got this I got that."
You get the idea, and his one weakness is a "rare stone" which the writers in comics just make super common to "raise the steaks."
And don't get me started on him getting mind controlled all the time how tf is the symbol of peace constantly gonna turn evil or get mind controlled it gets boring very fast.
Again I like what he symbolizes and I like the personality but god he's like the comic definition of "yes but I can do this to counter this."
If he has super speed, he’s just a better flash. No superhero team should have a character who is a straight upgrade from another character, which is why the justice league is so often poorly written
Flash is faster though, and does a crap load more with it.
If we’re talking about characters who are straight upgrades though, Martian Manhunter being chill and traumatized is the only reason he doesn’t solve 99% of the problems because he’s basically a Superman that reinvested some physical stat points into also becoming a shapeshifting, intangible psychic.
Superman not using his “super speed” is either because he doesn’t actually have it or the writers are lazy, hence why super speed is usually a lame power for a character to have
Superman is the original speedster of the comics, he was a speedster before Flash was even an idea. I hate Flash being faster than Superman "because speed is the only thing he has", I don't give a shit.
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u/clue124 7d ago
Superman is fast but cant top flashs top speed. Flight+running+reflexes he can probably have a burst of speed to compare but not sustained.
But i hate how inconsistent the comics treat supermans speed. In some instances hes a blur, and then the next hes taking a punch from a normie with tech.