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DC Comics - Post-Crisis Superman Early Key Proposal

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Here is the list of feat calculations regarding effort and limitations.

Post-COIE​

John Byrne​

Dan Jurgens​

Post-Eradicator​

  • Superman: The Man of Steel Vol 1 #29, January 1994 | Louise Simonson
    • Superman moved fast almost enough to negate the effects of the temporal modulation field's Time Slow | Faster than before, Possibly Speed of Light | Moderate to High effort
  • Arc
    • Action Comics Vol 1 #695, January 1994 | Karl Kesel
    • Superman: The Man of Steel Vol 1 #30, February 1994 | Louise Simonson
    • https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/User_blog:Firestorm808/DC_Comics_-_Lobo_Destroys_a_Planet | At least Multi-Continental level, possibly Small Planet level | At least High 6-A, possibly Low 5-B | Low effort
    • Lobo shattered a planet with a blast from his weapons.
    • Lobo states twice that Superman is stronger than last time.
    • Superman agrees twice that his powers are increasing.
    • Superman overcame the inertia of a ship the size of a small moon and throws it. | Moon level | Class P, 5-C | Low effort
    • They both survive a Force-Twelve Disintegration Beam | Low effort
  • Action Comics Vol 1 #696, February 1994 | Roger Stern
    • Superman feels stronger than ever.
    • His heat vision intensity increased.
    • Superman's strength has increased.
      Superman's cellular structure is enhanced compared to other Kryptonians.
    • Superman defeats The Champion | Low effort
      • The champion could not stop an asteroid that caused global cataclysms. | Continent to Multi-Continent level
  • Superman: The Man of Steel Vol 1 #31, March 1994 | Louise Simonson
  • Superman Vol 2 #90, June 1994 | Dan Jurgens
    • DC described their portrayal and depowering of Superman at the time.
    • No longer a planet juggler | Limit
      • Moving the Earth, the length of 5 of its diameter in a second is 1.21E+40 Joules / High 5-A.
      • 10 lengths at 4.8481747123552E+40 Joules / Low 4-C.
    • The entire point of the staff statement is to address general power concerns. I don't think they would mislead their readers with a Lifting Strength VS AP technicality. They don't intend to have Superman be at the above levels at the time.
  • Action Comics Vol 1 #704, November 1994 | David Michelinie
    • Superman confirms Eradicator and Superman are at the same tier of power now.
    • Superman is stronger than his Pre-Death self, and his Pre-Death self did not Scale to Eradicator.
  • Action Comics Annual Vol 1 #7, November 1995 | David Michelinie
    • Superman escapes the pull of a miniature black hole. | Unknown | High effort
  • Superman: The Man of Steel Vol 1 #52, January 1996 | Louise Simonson
    • CSM is confident using the power output of the planet’s core can harm Superman.
      • He compares his power to what he was capable of back in Reign of Supermen, so we should refer back to that and scale it to that. | At least Small Country level, possibly Multi-Continental level | At least Low 6-B, possibly High 6-A | Moderate to High Effort

Superman Red/Blue​

  • Man of Steel #68, June 1997 | Louise Simonson
    • Metallo absorbs the reactive energy of several nuclear reactors as it explodes. This is portrayed as a limit for Superman Blue
    • Superman Blue tries to render nuclear reactors | Up to Mountain level | Limit
  • JLA #7, July 1997 | Grant Morrison
    • The moon was crashing into Earth, so Superman Blue amps his electrical energy to hold the moon back, this is a good feat of how much electromagnetic energy he can actually hold. | Class Z | High effort, possibly Limit
  • Steel Vol 2 #50, May 1998 | Christopher Priest
    • Superman Red can redirect 50 kilotons of energy | Town level | Moderate effort
  • Superman Vol 2 #135, May 1998 | Dan Jurgens
    • The Earth's core was destabilized beyond repair, and the Red and Blue Supermen used their limit to fix it. | Planet level from GBE | Limit
 
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Firestorm808 said:
Here is the list of feat calculations regarding effort and limitations.

Post-COIE​

John Byrne​

  • Action Comics Vol 1 #585, February 1987 | John Byrne
  • Superman Vol 2 #9, September 1987 | John Byrne
  • Action Comics Vol 1 #591, August 1987 | John Byrne
    • Alternate Superboy is stated as faster and stronger than Superman, fast enough to exceed light speed, and fast enough to break the time barrier. Superman manages to crab his ankle before Superboy reaches full speed. As they approach full speed, Superman gets dizzy from the speed. Superboy uses one last burst of speed to break the time barrier. Superman couldn't handle the strain and loses his grip on the ankle. | Relativistic | Limit
  • Superman: The Power Within Storyline
    • Action Comics Vol 1 #601, May 1988 to Action Comics Vol 1 #658, October 1990
    • Darkseid made a machine that empowered both sides of the cult war.
    • Limit
      • Superman is hit twice and feels hurt by the enhanced tank and helicopter.
      • Soon, their power is increasing exponentially, preventing Superman from literally interfering with some kind of electrified force field being generated by the cult war.
    • Superman is teleported to an airless place. Without Air, he pushes himself to destroy the mechanical source of the cult energy.
    • Superman returns to Earth, catching his breath.
    • Darkseid reveals himself as the provider of the ever-increasing power of the Superman Cult War. Darkseid wanted the Superman Worshipers to witness his True Power compared to Superman and the false blessings given to them.
    • Action Comics Vol 1 #638, February 1989 | Roger Stern
      • Darkseid incapacitates Superman with a single blast. | Limit
    • Based on Darkseid's plan, is Darkseid's Cult Machine stronger than himself?
      • I interpret the scaling chain here to be: Darkseid > Max Machine Output to Cult War > Superman
  • Adventures of Superman Vol 1 #444, September 1988 | John Byrne

Dan Jurgens​

Post-Eradicator​

  • Superman: The Man of Steel Vol 1 #29, January 1994 | Louise Simonson
    • Superman moved fast almost enough to negate the effects of the temporal modulation field's Time Slow | Faster than before, Possibly Speed of Light | Moderate to High effort
  • Arc
    • Action Comics Vol 1 #695, January 1994 | Karl Kesel
    • Superman: The Man of Steel Vol 1 #30, February 1994 | Louise Simonson
    • https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/User_blog:Firestorm808/DC_Comics_-_Lobo_Destroys_a_Planet | At least Multi-Continental level, possibly Small Planet level | At least High 6-A, possibly Low 5-B | Low effort
    • Lobo shattered a planet with a blast from his weapons.
    • Lobo states twice that Superman is stronger than last time.
    • Superman agrees twice that his powers are increasing.
    • Superman overcame the inertia of a ship the size of a small moon and throws it. | Moon level | Class P, 5-C | Low effort
    • They both survive a Force-Twelve Disintegration Beam | Low effort
  • Action Comics Vol 1 #696, February 1994 | Roger Stern
    • Superman feels stronger than ever.
    • His heat vision intensity increased.
    • Superman's strength has increased.
      Superman's cellular structure is enhanced compared to other Kryptonians.
    • Superman defeats The Champion | Low effort
      • The champion could not stop an asteroid that caused global cataclysms. | Continent to Multi-Continent level
  • Superman: The Man of Steel Vol 1 #31, March 1994 | Louise Simonson
  • Superman Vol 2 #90, June 1994 | Dan Jurgens
    • DC described their portrayal and depowering of Superman at the time.
    • No longer a planet juggler | Limit
      • Moving the Earth, the length of 5 of its diameter in a second is 1.21E+40 Joules / High 5-A.
      • 10 lengths at 4.8481747123552E+40 Joules / Low 4-C.
    • The entire point of the staff statement is to address general power concerns. I don't think they would mislead their readers with a Lifting Strength VS AP technicality. They don't intend to have Superman be at the above levels at the time.
  • Action Comics Vol 1 #704, November 1994 | David Michelinie
    • Superman confirms Eradicator and Superman are at the same tier of power now.
    • Superman is stronger than his Pre-Death self, and his Pre-Death self did not Scale to Eradicator.
  • Action Comics Annual Vol 1 #7, November 1995 | David Michelinie
    • Superman escapes the pull of a miniature black hole. | Unknown | High effort
  • Superman: The Man of Steel Vol 1 #52, January 1996 | Louise Simonson
    • CSM is confident using the power output of the planet’s core can harm Superman.
      • He compares his power to what he was capable of back in Reign of Supermen, so we should refer back to that and scale it to that. | At least Small Country level, possibly Multi-Continental level | At least Low 6-B, possibly High 6-A | Moderate to High Effort

Superman Red/Blue​

  • Man of Steel #68, June 1997 | Louise Simonson
    • Metallo absorbs the reactive energy of several nuclear reactors as it explodes. This is portrayed as a limit for Superman Blue
    • Superman Blue tries to render nuclear reactors | Up to Mountain level | Limit
  • JLA #7, July 1997 | Grant Morrison
    • The moon was crashing into Earth, so Superman Blue amps his electrical energy to hold the moon back, this is a good feat of how much electromagnetic energy he can actually hold. | Class Z | High effort, possibly Limit
  • Steel Vol 2 #50, May 1998 | Christopher Priest
    • Superman Red can redirect 50 kilotons of energy | Town level | Moderate effort
  • Superman Vol 2 #135, May 1998 | Dan Jurgens
    • The Earth's core was destabilized beyond repair, and the Red and Blue Supermen used their limit to fix it. | Planet level from GBE | Limit
Click to expand...
Why no scans? How are we meant to evaluate this without scans
 
Take your time, but it is necessary to actually evaluate this.
 
Given that issue references were provided, you can also read the full stories via archives online for better context if you wish.
 
First, I feel that the justification is reasonable.
Second, as noted above, the new scale chain is needed.
Third, I don't know if it affects to the P&A section.
 
Armorchompy said:
I think it's better for the scans to be provided given multiple people may need to peruse them. It's also just how we usually do things.
Click to expand...
The general issue is that DC is a perfect example of specific scans not being enough, since it's full of throwaway lines that usually get disproven when the rest of the comic is read. But posting multiple scans in an album that basically show some counter-evidence alongside those throwaway lines is often good.
 
XXKINGXX69 said:
In Superman Vol 2 Annual 7, he breaks free from the grip of a monster with the strength of a planet, withstands it and destroys it with a punch. This was Year One Superman, so that's 1 pre-eradicator 5-B feat. That also implied he didn't know the limits of his strength
Click to expand...

According to the scan, Superman, by his own words, didn't break free from the grip. The enemy let go because Superman punched it in the jaw as instructed when he was about to be eaten. Doctor occult is ambiguous on the reason why such a grip came apart, even Superman is surprised.

Also, grip strength doesn't mean you are applying that amount of force on the object when you hold it. If a being with a star-level grip holds a banana to eat it, it will not apply star-level force on the banana. If the object being held resists the hold, then grip strength starts to come into play. The banana can push back mountain-level force, and the hand will grip back with equal force to keep the hold. The hand can go up to a star-level grip, but that doesn't mean star-level force is being applied to the object in hand.

As shown in the scans, Superman's push against the grip < the Monster's applied strength.

Considering this is Year 1 Superman, who will legitimately show limits lower in Tier 6 in years 2-5, I consider the glass jaw hypothesis.
 
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Firestorm808 said:
According to the scan, Superman, by his own words, didn't break free from the grip. The enemy let go because Superman punched it in the jaw as instructed when he was about to be eaten. Doctor occult is ambiguous on the reason why such a grip came apart, even Superman is surprised.

Also, grip strength doesn't mean you are applying that amount of force on the object when you hold it. If a being with a star-level grip holds a banana to eat it, it will not apply star-level force on the banana. If the object being held resists the hold, then grip strength starts to come into play. The banana can push back mountain-level force, and the hand will grip back with equal force to keep the hold. The hand can go up to a star-level grip, but that doesn't mean star-level force is being applied to the object in hand.

As shown in the scans, Superman's push against the grip < the Monster's applied strength.

Considering this is Year 1 Superman, who will legitimately show limits lower in Tier 6 in years 2-5, I consider the glass jaw hypothesis.
Click to expand...
Withstanding the grip of something with Planetary LS is a 5-B durability feat of its own, I really don't think the monster would hold back unless you have a more concrete reason he would. Not breaking free is a LS antifeat at best
 
Armorchompy said:
Withstanding the grip of something with Planetary LS is a 5-B durability feat of its own, I really don't think the monster would hold back unless you have a more concrete reason he would. Not breaking free is a LS antifeat at best
Click to expand...
The monster was trying to eat him. If I pick up something to eat like a banana, I typically don't crush it in my hands prior.

Hypothetically, you can have a story about Batman picked up and about to be eaten by a Titan, unable to escape its grip. Would we scale Batman's durability to the Titan's max grip strength?
 
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Unless the Titan was strong enough that it'd be an obvious outlier, ye. Fair enough on the rest though
 
AerrowStorm1 said:
I'm sorry but I have a very important question.

Wasn't Superman #3/AC #586/AoS #426 explicitly shown in New Gods vol 3 #15 (1989) to be one of Desaad's times pretending to be him, alongside his appearance in Doctor Fate?
Click to expand...
This statement doesn't really make much sense, since this Supes arc crosses over with Legends. At the end of Legends #4, Darkseid sets his sights on Superman, and the arc with Supes ends before Legends #5. Seems simple enough, but here's where the problem comes in, earlier in Legends #4, Desaad is banished to Skartaris, so Desaad literally could not be on Apokolips at the time. You could either see the New Gods #15 scan as referring to some other storyline or just being contradicted. On top of this, collections of Superman vs Darkseid fights include the Byrne story, further implying it's the real Darkseid.

Also, on the topic of some of the feats being seen as limits, I think this has already been covered by the "Varies" statistic. Many of the supposed limits are only tier 7, but they're explained as being part of his varying power level, with 6-B also being included. As this is being suggested, there is no reason his 4-B scaling can't fit in here either, as it follows the same logic and how we treat the character.

This is probably gonna be my last big response on this topic, so I'll just let everyone else decide what they think makes the most sense.
 
I still think that Firestorm808 makes sense here. Early in Post-Crisis Superman's career he wasn't displayed at anywhere near the power levels that he displayed after the Our Worlds at War event.

The Year One annual story seems to have been created much later than this era and not fit into its context well at all, and in addition Superman could not budge the grip of the monster. Some kind of illogical magic properties apparently caused it to have far lower ranked durability than lifting strength.
 
Antvasima said:
Would any of you be willing to comment here please?
Click to expand...
In terms of objective reason Superman did canonically grow powerful at least two times. After Doomsday killed him and after he got his powers back post-SBP (Mongol he technically didn't get any stronger but learned to just break his mental limits).

But the main issue in my view is that while that 100% makes perfect sense.... well just no one else has that justification but still scales to Superman. Its not like MMH, Bizarro or Lobo went through major powerups besides general power creep and they have usually been shown to be within Superman's weight class (weaker but still capable of harming him in some fashion). Its just some weird area where I understand acknowledging that Superman has grown in power, but the main issue is that no one else (technically) but would have gotten orders of magnitude stronger for little to no reason.
XXKINGXX69 said:
In Superman Vol 2 Annual 7, he breaks free from the grip of a monster with the strength of a planet, withstands it and destroys it with a punch. This was Year One Superman, so that's 1 pre-eradicator 5-B feat. That also implied he didn't know the limits of his strength
Click to expand...
While that does happen, strength of a planet makes no sense. Planet's aren't 5-B because they're strong or explode or whatever. They're 5-B because gravity holds them together and some of them are moving at fast velocity.
 
Well, the Mongul training did power up Superman a lot compared to previously, as seen in how Superman was able to quite easily defeat Doomsday afterwards and Doomsday even broke his claws on Superman's skin. Breaking his mental limits was here shown to mean accessing greater amounts of power, rather than just not holding back as much.
 
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Anyway, I don't mind if we simply acknowledge that Superman was legitimately objectively displayed at different power levels and ignore that other characters did not have in-story reasons for becoming more powerful.
 
Antvasima said:
Anyway, I don't mind if we simply acknowledge that Superman was legitimately objectively displayed at different power levels and ignore that other characters did not have in-story reasons for becoming more powerful.
Click to expand...
I would say it is an example of everybody fights everybody. Some secondary characters with limited story arcs are just default comparable to the current Superman at the time.

I'm fine with keeping the Predeath key isolated to Superman until new info comes out.
 
Please elaborate regarding what you think that we should do regarding the scaling for other characters.
 
Depending on the concentration of appearances in an era, we would reliably scale to that era's Superman. For example, if Character A had 10 interactions and appearances pre-death but 100 post-death, it's more reliable to scale from post-death feats.
 
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Here's an example of the generally static Martian Manhunter.

Of the total 1201 Total New Earth Appearances from the DC Wiki, I got 638 labeled with years so far. Of those 638 labeled, 130 take place Pre-Death or 20%.

Martian Manhunter had 55 Solo Comics, with only 4 comics taking place Pre-Death or 7%.

It is statistically more reliable to use Post-Death Feats for MM.
 
Qawsedf234 said:
That was Doomsday Rex, an copy of Doomsday made by Lex Luthor. It's possible that it was an inferior copy like with the Darkseid produced Doomsday clones.
Click to expand...
Doomsday was reborn thanks to Lex's help, it wasn't some copy. Doomsday was also getting weaker due to his emotions in that story
 
Qawsedf234 said:
That was Doomsday Rex, an copy of Doomsday made by Lex Luthor. It's possible that it was an inferior copy like with the Darkseid produced Doomsday clones.
Click to expand...
Eh? That is not how I remember it. Are we talking about the version that fought Superman right after the Imperiex war and beat up the Martian Manhunter before fighting Superman?
 
XXKINGXX69 said:
Doomsday was reborn thanks to Lex's help, it wasn't some copy. Doomsday was also getting weaker due to his emotions in that story
Click to expand...
Well, Doomsday was afraid in that story due to being killed by Imperiex previously and turning more intelligent, but I do not think that it actually depowered him. He was just not able to fight as efficiently anymore.
 
In any case, we will take care of post death revisions later.

I'll go ahead and start sorting out pre and post death abilities.
 
Qawsedf234 said:
That was Doomsday Rex, an copy of Doomsday made by Lex Luthor. It's possible that it was an inferior copy like with the Darkseid produced Doomsday clones.
Click to expand...
Yeah, Doomsday clones are typically a lot weaker than the real Doomsday. Batman killed some of them with a regular hatchet before.
 
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