Anyone else think that Superman's powers should be handled a little differently? The main way they usually try to justify them is Superman absorbing Yellow Sun radiation and gaining somehow fueling his powers through that. But I think better explanations for most of them should come from the fact that he's an alien, with different evolutionary abilities.
>Superstrength is obvious, as it was there from the beginning that he was strong because he's a being from a larger planet with higher gravity.
>I've seen versoins of Krypton being portrayed as frigid, so "freeze breath" could easily just be his Kryptonian lungs, that have structures in them to extract heat in the air, so as to lose less in a cold climate.
>X-Ray vision is simply a factor of his eyes having cells to pick up on a lager chunk of the electromagnetic spectrum. Not even a "power", really, just a factor of his biology that his eyes have X-ray sensors in them
>His cells DO have the ability to absorb sun radiation and turn it to heat to survive, and his eyes have the natural ability to radiate that "heat vision". In Krypton's red, less powerful sun, this evolved to share heat with infants, on Earth, this ability is overcharged and comes out in a more violent manner.
Still haven't figured out the main ones such as flight, or invulnerability, but flight at least could have something to do with an ability to counteract Krypton's high gravity. Any ideas on this would be appreciated. I think there's better justifications out there than "Yellow Sun did it"
>>82493859
The main issue is that the writers simply don't seem to want to bother making distinctions like that to allow easy tings like "no solar energy = no power".
Just look at Earth-2 Superman, whose initial power set was established as being possessed by Kryptonians even in Krypton, and just the result of evolution and gravity differences, but when he lost his solar energy due to flying through a red sun in Infinite Crisis he was shown to be just as weakened or even more weakened than modern Superman and Superboy Prime.
>>82493859
Almost every superpower he has can be explained as some form of gravity control.
Other writers have explored this, like in irredeemable/incorruptible.
>>82493859
The Sun directly relates him to a symbol of inherent Good.
>Socrates reveals this "child of goodness" to be the sun, proposing that just as the sun illuminates, bestowing the ability to see and be seen by the eye, with its light so the idea of goodness illumines the intelligible with truth
That is something that NO WRITER should ever rewrite.
>>82493920
>But when he lost his solar energy due to flying through a red sun in Infinite Crisis he was shown to be just as weakened or even more weakened than modern Superman and Superboy Prime.
Lame. But as I said, you could still make all his powers be derived from his Kryptonian biology, and all be native to Krypon, and still do "No Yellow sun = radically reduced powers." Because his body is partly fueled by light it converts to energy, and without that, he has less energy for his biological processes. It just wouldn't take away ones like say, his x Ray vision, which is just there.
>>82493939
>Almost every superpower he has can be explained as some form of gravity control.
Come again? You does that apply to freeze breath?
>>82493956
You'll notice if you read my post fully, I didn't write out the sun as his power source, I just attempted to make it less prominent in areas it makes no sense.
>>82493983
Irredeemable/incorruptible has a section later on where they go through all this, I don't recall what they did for everything but they were pretty thorough.
>>82494019
Might check that out if you think it's worth it.
>>82493983
I looked it up, it was actually psyonic ability to manipulate gravity and matter.
Reduce mass, increase mass, excite molecules, compress air rapidly etc.
>>82493859
In words of Hickman:
Kids know Crabs can't talk. Retard autists from /pol/ make dumb threads
the superman in the dark knight returns is the perfect balanced superman. he isn't invulnerable without kryptonite, he can't lift 50,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons like the current one can, he can get tired, Ect Although he can live everything up to a well placed nuke he isn't a god.
>>82494133
You should check out superman from post crisis - to death of superman.
He was the most well balanced.
Very well grounded, not absolutely ridiculous, and plenty of things could hurt him.
>>82493859
I'd argue it's fine as it is. My opinion on superpowers has always been that simplicity tends to be the best solution.
They're never going to be realistic no matter how much you try to justify them so it's much easier to digest for the audience if you do away with complicated psuedo-science explanations for everything. Getting caught up in those details just kind of wastes everyones time and makes things needlessly convoluted.
Superman is powered by the sun. Hal has a special ring powered by will that makes constructs. Bruce Banner was exposed to radiation and changes when he's angry. Luffy ate a magic fruit that makes him rubber. The Joestars can summon familiars with wacky abilities. Zatanna is a magician.
There's a time and place for details and realism, but as far as comic book action goes it's always felt extraneous to me when dealing with superpowers. As long as things follow an internal logic and stay consistent that's all that matters. Especially in DC and Marvel stuff where characters constantly shift between different writers and media, so having something easy to grasp eases those transitions.
>>82493970
That's my point. That's pretty much how Earth-2 Superman's powerset was retconned to work. His initial powers were due to inherent biology, and eventually the sun was used to explain his later power boosts compared to his original Action Comics #1 powerset when they brought him back as the "Earth-2" Superman.
And yet, when they wrote him in a modern comic, they just went "lol, no solar energy, no powers." They like the easy "powers canceled" off switch.
>>82493859
No, Yellow Sun did it.
>>82493939
>Almost every superpower he has can be explained as some form of gravity control.
But it's best if you don't try to explain them.
