Superman (Golden Age)

* Infinite Crisis
* Original

## Summary

This is the Superman whose publication history covers every event from 1938-1985 on Earth-2 of the Original Multiverse before it was destroyed by the **Crisis on Infinite Earths** event.

Superman was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in 1938 and debuted in *Action Comics* #1 published by DC Comics.

## Powers and Stats

**Key: Early Golden Age | Late Golden Age | Silver Age | Infinite Crisis**

**Tier: 6-B - 4-C | 2-C | 2-C**

**Name:** Superman / Kal-L / Clark Kent

**Epithets:** Man of Steel, Man of Tomorrow, Last Son of Krypton

**Origin:** DC Comics

**Gender:** Male

**Age:** 60's

**Race:** Kryptonian

**Classification:** Superhero / Reporter / Honorary Member of the Justice Society of America

**Alignment:** Neutral Good

**Powers and Abilities:** Stellar Radiation Absorption, Superhuman Physical Characteristics, Flight, Heat Vision, Freeze Breath, Super Breath, Enhanced Senses, Healing Factor, Telepathic Resistance, Limited Telepathy, Illusion Projection, Limited Spatial Manipulation, Atomic Manipulation Resistance, Time Manipulation Resistance, Reality Warping Resistance, Instinctive Reactions via "Theta State"

**Attack Potency:** At least **Large Country level** (Moved the Appalachian Mountain Range) | **Star level** (Blew out a star with his Super Breath and created a star with his bare hands) | **Low Multiverse level+** (Repeatedly stalemated Pre-Crisis Superman in their various encounters) | **Low Multiverse level+** (Shattered dimensions with his punches and threatened all of reality in a fight with Post-Crisis Superman)

**Speed:** At least **Hypersonic** | **Massively FTL+** (Able to reach the depths of space in short timeframes) | **Supremely FTL+** (Able to fight on par with Pre-Crisis Superman) | **Supremely FTL+** (Able to fight on par with Post-Crisis Superman)

**Durability:** At least **Large Country level** | **Star level** | **Low Multiverse level+** (Repeatedly stalemated Pre-Crisis Superman in their various encounters) | **Low Multiverse level+** (Tanked punches from Post-Crisis Superman that were shattering reality)

**Lifting Strength:** **Class P** (Lifted the Appalachian Mountain Range) | **Stellar** (Power scaling to Wonder Woman) | **Virtually Infinite** (Power scaling to Post-Crisis Superman)

**Range:** **Standard Melee Range** normally, **Interstellar** with Heat Vision

**Stamina:** **Virtually Inexhaustible** (while under yellow or blue stellar radiation)

**Mental Capacity:** **Above Average**

**Fighting Experience:** **Class B-1** (40+ Years] / Boxing)

**Standard Equipment:** Kryptonian Costume, Cape

**Weaknesses:** Kryptonite (various kinds), Red Stellar Radiation, Magic

## Skills and Abilities

### **Powers**

**Kryptonian Physiology:** Superman's cellular structure is much denser, more resilient, and biologically more effective than human tissue. However, he does not possess superhuman strength if his cellular structure is not charged with yellow solar energy. Without such charging, his physical capabilities are identical to a human of his height and weight who engages in regular physical activity. As an alien, he possesses several organs whose functions are not yet disclosed or understood, but are believed to be part of or the source of his bio-matrix force field and reclamation aura. Superman's body also stores energy actively within his bio-cellular matrix as an energy pattern that is linked to his body's electromagnetic field.

* **Solar Radiation Absorption:** As a Kryptonian, Superman’s cells function like a super battery, hyper-metabolizing specific wavelengths of radiation as fuel to enable living functions and/or superhuman abilities. Different wavelengths of radiation have different effects on Superman's physiology and well-being, but his cells can only absorb and utilize radiation from stars. Radiation from a red sun enables his body to function on an identical level of a healthy human male. The Sun’s yellow solar radiation acts as fuel to enable all of his powers. Every time Superman uses any of his superhuman abilities, his body expends absorbed sunlight. His cellular structure has the ability to absorb an unlimited amount of yellow sunlight, making him more powerful the closer he is to the Sun and the longer he bathes in it. His body “hyper-metabolizes” yellow sunlight, meaning that it duplicates the radiation he absorbs to an unknown degree. The radiation of a blue star increases his known abilities to an even higher level and enables him additional abilities. The constant exposure to yellow sunlight is not required for him to utilize his powers, though prolonged periods without it will require him to recharge, though it takes at least more than five days devoid of sunlight for this to begin to occur. Lastly, it is possible for Superman to voluntarily absorb certain kinds of radiation related to solar radiation, as he absorbed an entire “Anti-Sun” of the Mageddon that would have “vaporized half the galaxy."

* **Superhuman Durability:** Superman is impervious to almost all forms of harm and physical ailments. This includes toxins, disease, blunt force trauma, extreme pressures, and extremely high temperatures. Over the years, he has brushed off bullets, bombs, nuclear detonations, planet collisions, flying through stars, supernovas, and black holes. His invulnerability is enough that it grants him the ability to survive in any environment without aid, including underwater, in the vacuum of space, and within the cores of planets and stars. Partially, this invincibility is due to his Kryptonian physiology, which provides him a much denser molecular structure than any normal human while under a yellow sun. But also, Superman’s body produces a very thin bio-electric force field around his entire body. This force field protects him from most damage. Superman’s innards are composed of the same super dense and nigh invincible molecules that make up his skin, as he’s been able to swallow entire bombs and even suck up an atmosphere’s worth of toxic gas to save others from fallout.

* **Superhuman Endurance:** While under a yellow sun, Superman's energy reserves are nigh-infinite. Only by exerting extreme amounts of effort will he drain his solar power faster than it can replenish itself. Under his normal power, Superman was shown capable of bench pressing the mass of the Earth underground and devoid of sunlight for five full days, producing only a single drop of sweat. He remarks that he could have done more, but the machine testing him wouldn't go any higher.
	+ **Self-Sustenance:** Superman's cells act as millions of tiny solar batteries. So long as they are charged, Superman does not need to eat, drink, or sleep and can survive in the most inhospitable of environment unaided.
	+ **Healing Factor:** In the event that Superman is injured, he has the ability to heal almost instantaneously from any wound, provided the process is not impeded by some outside factor (Kryptonite, Red Solar Radiation, etc.) This "healing factor" is supplemented by his stores of solar energy and is completely involuntary. Much like a human’s immune system and healing rate, Superman cannot choose when he heals and when he doesn’t, though his body will instinctively use whatever little solar power it has to keep him alive. He's had his neck slashed open by Wonder Woman and even used the solar energy in his body to recover from death.

* **Superhuman Strength:** Superman has shown that he is easily capable of crushing diamonds in his hands, lifting mountains and continents, and moving entire planets with his strength alone, the latter being approximately 6.6 sextillion tons. His striking force is stated numerous times to be enough to “shatter planets." However, though his strength is fueled by the solar energy within his cells, it has been hinted that it is somewhat psionic in nature, a form of tactile telekinesis. This means that Superman is partially lifting objects with his physical strength and partially extending some kind of field around the object itself, which would explain why the object doesn’t crumble apart under its own weight. Superman has moved objects dwarfing the size of the Earth like the Mageddon Machine and Brainiac's ship, and his strength sometimes appears to be infinite, as he’s lifted a Book of Infinite Pages.

* **Superhuman Speed:** Superman is capable of moving, reacting, running, and flying at speeds far exceeding light. Casually, Superman can break the light barrier. Unlike Flash, however, he does not appear able to break the time barrier under his own power. Superman’s speed is nigh instantaneous, as he is able to increase his perception and movement speed within fractions of a second. His brain also reacts and perceives things at the attosecond. He has been shown reading and comprehending tens of thousands of texts in minutes and perceiving things as if they were frozen in time alongside the Flash. Superman has raced Flash numerous times, traveled to galaxies and back in a matter of minutes, and even flown across the entire DC universe (100 trillion light years) in sixty days.

* **Flight:** Superman’s ability to fly comes from his being from a planet with a much higher gravity than that of Earth’s and due to his body’s ability to produce its own gravitons while empowered a yellow sun. This allows Superman to produce his own personalized flight field and move himself through the air very quickly and with perfect control. He has been shown casually flying upside down, backwards, and even under extremely heavy gravitational forces such as black holes. Superman is also at his fastest whenever he is flying, being capable of traveling several trillions of times the speed of light while in space. Superman doesn’t travel this fast while still within the Earth’s atmosphere, remaining cautious to the environmental devastation he would cause.

* **Superhuman Senses:**
	+ **Super Smell:** On various occasions, Superman has demonstrated that his olfactory senses are just as acute as any other sense he possess, being able to discern odors that would be odorless to normal human beings. He’s also demonstrated the ability to identify smells clear across the planet.
	+ **Super Hearing:** Superman has incredible hearing, allowing him to detect sounds and frequencies from across the globe. He has shown enough control to block out ambient noise to focus on a specific source and can even hear every heartbeat and every transmitted signal on the entire planet. He can detect an individual by their heartbeat alone and can tell when someone’s lying based on the irregularities of that heartbeat. Superman can even ignore the laws of a vacuum and hear a cry for help while in space, even billions of miles away from the Earth.
	+ **Super Vision:** More commonly known as his X-Ray Vision, Superman possesses the ability to see far more than just the visible light spectrum. By focusing the muscles in his eyes, he can choose to perceive the entire electromagnetic spectrum: radio waves, microwaves, infrared radiation, ultraviolet light, gamma rays, and x-rays. Superman has even proven capable of seeing a person’s soul or living essence before.
	+ **Telescopic/Microscopic Vision:** He also possesses Telescopic Vision and Microscopic Vision; the former allowing him to see clearly across vast distances (even to other galaxies) and the latter allowing him to see at the sub-atomic level. He has used both in battle before to deduce his enemy’s weaknesses and exploit them.

* **Super Breath:** Superman can create hurricane force winds by expelling air from his lungs. He primarily uses this to avert natural disasters like forest fires, but it can be used in battle to blow opponents down, redirect attacks, or even cause actual destruction.
	+ **Freeze Breath:** Also known as Arctic Breath, Superman can chill the air leaving his lungs in order to freeze a target in place. He regularly employs this in combat to stagger and defeat enemies and has mastered using it to various degrees. When Superman takes air into his lungs, they compress the incoming gas. When this gas expands upon exhalation, in a fashion analogous to the operation of an air conditioners compressor, the sudden increase in volume of the gas causes its temperature to drop proportionally to the size of this expansion. Superman has proven capable of projecting ice storms with bowling ball size hail, freezing enemies solid in their tracks, and even slowing down the the particles of intangible opponents to absolute zero in order to hit them.

* **Heat Vision:** Superman has the ability to project twin beams of intense heat onto a target by consciously activating the solar energy behind his eyes. Visually, the power is typically depicted as two beams of red light being fired from his eyes, though the beams can be made invisible to allow Superman to work undetected. The effective range of Superman’s heat vision is anywhere from point blank to millions of miles away. He can widen these beams to dozens or even thousands of miles in width. He has instantly incinerated an army of imperfect Doomsday clones and heated up an entire planet from a second ice age. He has also repaired tears in reality with his heat vision alone. Superman usually uses his Telescopic Vision in conjunction with this power to allow for greater accuracy and precision. Superman can ricochet his beams off of solid surfaces in order to hit his opponent and he can bypass a target’s outer shell to strike at their internal organs. He's used the latter in conjunction with his microscopic vision to perform surgeries and even lobotomize dangerous enemies, robbing them of their powers, memories, or both. However, he normally doesn’t use his powers in such a way due to his moral constraints. It has also been stated that the heat of Superman's heat vision is unquantifiable by modern scientific standards, meaning it exceeds Planck temperature or what is known as absolute hot.

### **Weaknesses**

* **Kryptonite:** Kryptonite is a radioactive piece of Superman’s homeworld of Krypton. After his planet exploded, the debris from its destruction passed through several different nebulae, becoming radioactive and harmful to Superman in various ways. Sundipping negates the effects of Kryptonite entirely.
	+ Green Kryptonite is lethal to a Kryptonian’s physiology. The radiation it gives off gradually weakens Superman and causes him excruciating physical pain. Superman has likened it being like every cell in his body was on fire. However, if Green Kryptonite is removed from Superman’s immediate area, then his powers return to him and he’s cured of its effects. Through training, Superman has learned to deal with the effects of Green Kryptonite better than he initially could. He’s been shot with Kryptonite bullets, had pieces of it in his brain, and been hit with Kryptonite lasers.
	+ Red Kryptonite is an anomaly of the Kryptonite family, as it has caused various ill-effects over the years. However, its effects have generally been suggested to be random depending on the universe it resides in. However, most commonly, it causes some kind of mental change in Superman, from a shift in personality to hallucinatory effects of various kind.
	+ Blue Kryptonite is another that has been changed from writer to writer. Recently, it has been shown to rob Superman of his powers for as long as he is in contact with it. It also hurts Bizarro forms of Kryptonians just like Green Kryptonite hurts normal Kryptonians.
	+ Silver Kryptonite has been shown to cause Superman to become overly paranoid and have hallucinations of his worst fears and nightmares.
	+ Black Kryptonite splits a Kryptonian's good identity from their evil identity until they can merge back together as one. Whichever side wins the battle between them is the one who claims full control over the body.
	+ Gold Kryptonite will rob any Kryptonian of their powers permanently, only able to regain them through still unspecified means.

* **Lead:** Superman cannot use his X-Ray Vision to see through lead. Criminals will often use lead to hide their misdeeds from Superman, though this can have the opposite effect of telling Superman where to look when he's scanning an area. Ironically, lead is also the only substance shown to block the radiation of Kryptonite.

* **Magic:** One of Superman’s most well-known weaknesses is magic, though Superman is not conventionally weak to it. Instead, it just affects him like it does any other being. Magic is a force that bypasses the bio-electric force field around Superman's skin to hit his skin directly. However, Superman’s dense molecular structure is still durable enough to shrug off some magical attacks. Pure being of magic like Shazam and Black Adam use lightning attacks that only marginally scorch Superman’s skin. Superman has withstood several magical attacks from cosmic entities like Spectre and Doctor Fate.

* **Red Solar Radiation:** Another of Superman’s weaknesses is red solar radiation. While a yellow sun imbues Superman with his abilities, red solar radiation will gradually take them away. This is why Kryptonians living on Krypton didn’t have Superman’s superhuman abilities. Because their sun, Rao, was a red sun. However, red solar radiation does not immediately drain Superman of his power. Instead, it only gradually takes them away over time. In Infinite Crisis, three Supermans fly through Rao while surrounded by Kryptonite before crash landing on a deserted planet and continuing their battle. He’s also fought many beings who casually wield red solar radiation in their arsenal like Lex Luthor and Captain Atom. Also, we can actually calculate how much red solar radiation would weaken Superman by. A main sequence yellow star has an effective temperature of approximately 6,000 K while a red star has anywhere between 2,400 - 3700 K, around half a yellow sun. Their luminosity is about the same, with a main sequence yellow star having a maximum of 1.5 L and a red star having a maximum of 0.8 L. Thus, it can be theorized that a red sun would weaken Superman at a rate of half his solar energy levels per second.