Superman Feats Clarifications and Corrections

Post-Crisis

Earth 2 Superman

Claim 1:

1. Post-Crisis Superman's fight with Golden Age Superman rewrote timelines and shattered a space-time continuum. It was repeatedly stated that they would destroy each others’ universes and then eventually they started shattering the universe again, and they were again shown rewriting timelines. The DC Comics website confirms that the two were shaking the space-time continuum apart. 

Source: Adventures of Superman Vol 1 #649, April 2006

Evaluation 1:

The reason that the DCU shakes is because of Alexander Luthor of Earth 3. The things he caused include, changing the center of the universe from Oa to Earth by moving and destroying planets in turn shifting the cosmic balance, causing a tear in the space-time continuum in Ran's star system in the Polaris Galaxy, using a cosmic tuning fork to split New Earth and bring back Earth 2

DC Comics Site: "The DCU shakes apart as Superman of Earth 2 finally confronts our Superman. Meanwhile, heroes are disappearing throughout the DC Universe, a transformed villain returns, and the mystics of every world and dimension seek help from the very Spirit that is destroying them."

Superman could be doing anything else, and the universe shaking would still occur. "The DCU shakes apart as Superman punches a wall."

Verdict 1: Rejected

Wonder Woman

• Superman fights Wonder Woman on multiple occasions, and even killed her once, 

Claim 1: Wonder Woman can recreate the timeline with her Lasso of Truth

Source: 1: Wonder Woman Vol 2 #136 August 1998

Evaluation 1: 

• God of Truth Wonder Woman patches holes in  the timeline with her Lasso of Truth
• "This lasso is a focus of the power granted by Hestia, Wally. That power is to draw truth from the minds and hearts of mortals and gods. With that ability now greatly magnified by my godhood, I believe your memories of Donna can be turned into a living truth!
• "Dark Angel's actions recreated my double as a separate entity with her own soul and her own place in the timestream. Now, there is a hole in that timestream, which I believe will allow us to remake the world in the image of your memory!"
• "If we patch those holes in the timestream, how can we be certain Donna doesn't have holes in her memory?"

Verdict 1: Rejected

Claim 2: Wonder Woman can fight the Queen of Fables, who is an extra-dimensional embodiment of evil folklore

Source 2: JLA Volume 1 #47-49

Evaluation 2: By FanofRPGs

Wonder Woman only used her lasso to impose truth on the Queen of Fables.

I don't know where the Queen of Fables being 4-Dimensional comes from, presumably either Action Comics #834/835 or Wonder Woman Volume 3 #24/25, but irregardless, throughout the main storyline the Queen of Fables wasn't directly fighting them there at all; she was taking stories from each hero's folklore and having them fight it. Superman wasn't fighting a direct manifestation of the Queen of Fables, he was fighting a beast from Kryptonian legend who was also under a yellow sun. Jon was fighting this candle monster from his own folklore. Wonder Woman comes from Greco-Roman Mythology so she was being bound by the webs of spiders, alluding to the myth of Arachne. They were spawned by the Queen of Fables, but we have no proof they scale to her. They scale to the fear the JLA has of them.

And sure, entertaining that she can withstand 4-D energy, that's still not why they defeated her. They didn't physically beat her. The Queen of Fables' whole modus operandi is manipulating fiction and fantasy and thriving on its magical and unreal properties. She saw herself existing in a fictional world of knights and goblins and dwarevs and woodsmen and magic mirrors. Diana's whip, IIRC it's magic but that doesn't matter, focuses on truth and reality, hence why it is called "The Lasso of Truth." When the Queen of Fables accidentaly took hold of it, she witnessed the scientific and grounded nature of the real world, that she can age, that life is transient, and from experiencing the reality of the universe she lost. In fact, in order to keep her powerless for ever, they sealed her inside the most unimaginative and dull thing possible - a tax-code manual. This again shows that she has no power over physical scientific reality and cannot scale to the characters' physicality.

She was not defeated physically, she was defeated by the fact that she was trying to push fantasy and fiction in a world where none of it existed and she was forced to face the consequences of being in a world where she could age and she couldn't summon minotaurs. So in other words, the JLA never really did scale physically to her.

Verdict 2: Rejected

Monarch

Claim 1: Superman can withstand Monarch's quantum power

Source 1: Countdown: Arena Vol 1 #4, February 2008

Evaluation 1:

• Monarch won against 52 Captain Atoms and 3 Supermen.
• New Earth Superman doesn't appear in this story. Also, Monarch basically stomped everyone. None of the Alternate Supermen took a quantum beam attack from him.

Verdict 1: Rejected

Claim 2

• Superman fought Monarch, 
• This Monarch was actually the future Hawk, not Captain Atom.
• whose quantum power is like the Big Bang, and whose fight with Captain Atom was twisting space and time and causing compressed universes to explode. 
• Captain Atom has destroyed and recreated the universe and can freely control it, and was going to destroy several universes, and one shotted Jenny Quantum, 
• who created a universe, tear apart a reality, contain a universe with her powers, and annihilated the Doctor, who can create a universe, and yet is weaker than Superman. 

Source 2: Armageddon 2001 Vol 1 #2, October 1991

Evaluation 2:

1. This Monarch was actually the future Hawk, not Captain Atom.

Verdict 2: Rejected

Red King

Claim: 

• Superman fought the Red King, 
• who can reshape the universe and destroy possibilities containing universes one by one, as well as having created the universe with his dreams. 

Source: JLA Classified #32-36

Evaluation: 

By FanOfRPGs

This is 100% absolutely out of context.

For one thing, the Red King is a man named Darrin Proffit. And it was Doctor Destiny using a Relic gem in the Materioptikon(?) to destroy possibilities, not the Red King through physical abilities. This same relic/setup allowed Darin Proffit to exploit the defects of it to go across billions of different realities and have different lives, weeding it down to three left where three Profitts, now known as the Red King, was vested armor that wasn't based on the gem, but basically the best technology feasibly created by thousands of worlds and millions of lifetimes worth of research to counter the JLA. So it had some limited dimensional manipulation but its full extent is unknown. Point is he doesn't scale to breaking probabilities because that is in a context not seen at the moment. That is only when he is in the Materioptikon and using that stone again, not his own power, to destroy obsolete possibilities and using the realm within it as Batman describes in #36 as a "hub world."

Darin fought that Bizarro Superman in #35, that first blast wasn't a full powered one, it was just one to throw down Supes and potentially kill him. His actual full powered attack killed Superman, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman. He also one-shotted MMH after MMH kept spamming illusions. Point is, he outright stomped the league when it came to head-on strength and there was nothing that the JLA could do when it came to brute strength to do anything, and again the reality shattering is through a means he doesn't enjoy whenever he is fighting the JLA.

In #36, Flash states Superman wouldn't be able to keep up with Red King, and Red King hadn't even used his full power yet. When he actually starts fighting, he easily defeats GL and MMH and his largest fuckup was absorbing one of the alternate Red Kings who had became a good guy which corrupted his mind and let him fall into the JLA's trap and lose. And finally, Superman only managed to punch him off guard to BFR him.

The only possible scalable feat here is that Wonder Woman destroyed this Gem, but we don't know if it's durability scales to its power potential, especially since it's stated to be useless outside its hub world.

So basically all the reality destruction is based on a gem relic that only works and is really useful in its hubworld and Red King's actual powers are all earth-based with some hax limitedly shown like dimensional manipulation. He still absolutely stomped the JLA and is far above them. Superman shouldn't at all scale to any probability destruction unless you argue WW destroying the gem could scale but I don't think there is any proof its actual durability scales.

Verdict: Rejected

Icon

Claim:

1. Superman tanked a punch from Icon, 
1. who killed Starbreaker, 
   1. who killed someone who was holding the universe together.

Source: Justice League of America Vol 2 #28, February 2009 and Justice League of America Vol 2 #33, July 2009

Evaluation:

• Superman and Icon traded hard blows to fake a fight.
• Icon didn't Kill Starbreaker

Verdict: Rejected

Cythonna

• Superman fought and overwhelmed the Kryptonian God Cythonna, 
  • who warred for a long time against the Kryptonian God Rao, who created the universe. 

Source: Superman: The Last God of Krypton

Evaluation: By FanofRPGs

Superman didn't overwhelm Cythonia whatsoever. In fact, the reality is that Cythonnia >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Superman. Superman admits he was scared of her. Lex Luthor believes she is much stronger and gambles giving him a piece of kryptonite to hopefully beat her. Before the main fight Superman even gave Lois Lane his mechsuit to protect her believing that he will lose to Cythonna.

Then she revealed his true form and still beat him down hard. It took intervention from Lois Lane with a Kryptonian Mech and Superman using Lex Luthor's kryptonite on her to push her into the core of the Sun to finally subdue her, not even beat her, but just weaken her as she has a weakness to the Sun. So her true form even while weakened by direct solar contact still >>> Superman while fighting in the Sun who only was even to her first form when heavily weakened.

Lastly, there is no proof Cythonna is even universal. For one thing, the notion that Rao created the universe is from Kryptonian Mythology, not actual grounded reality. This mythology is explored in Action Comics #886 where the myth is described from a Kryptonian book. Ergo, it has a bias towards Kryptonians and isn't based on objective reality. In Sandman: Endless Nights, Rao is portrayed as a star god governing solely his star system and representing it, making him star or large star level (Rao is a Red Giant, meaning it might be low density/gravity and thus low GBE but we don't know). And in reality, as discovered later, the World Forger/Anti-Monitor and Spectre in COIE created the universe. So Cythonna really would only be at most Large Star level. She isn't even universal in the first place.

Verdict: Rejected

Firestorm

Claim: Superman tanks attacks from Firestorm, who has the power of a Big Bang..

Source: Brightest Day Vol 1 #10, November 2010

Evaluation:

• Firestorm could trigger a new big bang when he is at emotional odds. This energy level is not his normal state.  Etc.
• Now that the Matrix is fully bonded to you both, Firestorm is going through yet another Metamorphosis. A final stage, I mentioned. You're becoming more powerful than you could imagine.
• [The Matrix is] The big bang. The trigger for starting the universe or restarting it in this case.
• The universe is an endless cycle of expansion and contraction. It lives and grows for billions of years. And then collapses and starts again. According to countless scientists, including The Atom, this universe is long overdue.
• Think of yourselves as a living version of the large hadron collider underneath the Franco-swiss border.
• Everytime you and Ronald argue, you're causing a destabilization in the Matrix. The more you're at odds, the higher chance of triggering a new big bang.
• [What are the chances of that, Professor?] At emotional equilibrium, near zero. But agitated? One in a million. Maybe one in a hundred thousand.
• You two blow up, and everything in existence will be destroyed, leaving only the two of you.
• Due to Ronnie's and Jason's merging as Firestorm having limited appearances before the New 52, he is unable to scale to those he did prior.

Verdict: Rejected

Blackstar

Claim:

• Superman fights Blackstar, 
  • who wields the energies of the cosmos

Source: Action Comics Vol 1 #850 July 2007

Evaluation: How do you quantify a tier for this?

Verdict: Rejected

Nebula Man

Claim: 

• Superman fought against Nebula Man, 
  • who is a universe. 

Source: Justice League Classified #1-3

Evaluation: By FanofRPGs

There is SO much wrong with this I can't even keep count

Well, for one thing, Nebula Man (Also known as Qwewq for anyone confused) is a mini-universe... Literally... As in sure within him is a universe but characters have to use a boomtube to go in an infant form of himself because the universe exists on an attoscopic scale. Adult Nebuloh doesn't look all too much larger, which can also explained because he was weakened due to being inside a human host at the time. He will eventually grow to the size of a real universe, but even that is prevented because a flaw given to him in his infant self where he isn't even capable of expanding to that level.

Plus what even is this fight? It wasn't some grueling match where either side went all out, it was a short skirmish where it's clear both are just doing intimidating glancing blows and warning shots, not nearly using their full power. This isn't a real fight, it's a tiny skirmish at best.

So in conclusion here:

1. Superman and Nebula Man both weren't exerting nearly enough effort to show their full capabilities or who would really win
2. Regardless of the effort of the fight, Nebula Man is a living universe but said universe is attoscopic in scale and he has expanded only enough to fill out a human host, and due to a flaw in him he can't even expand to a universal scope anyways.

 Verdict: Rejected

Tesseract Swarm

Claim 1: Superman survived an encounter with a tesseract swarm.

Source: JLA Vol 1 #78 | April 2003

Evaluation: As shown in the panels, tesseracts warp space and don't display a form of AP to scale from.  

Verdict: Rejected

Black Adam

• Superman defeats Black Adam, 
  
• who survived a tesseract expanding in his head. 
  

Shazam

• Superman stalemates amped Shazam right after fighting Black Adam, 
  
• who tanked a tesseract bomb in his base.

Imperiex Probes and Aquaman

1. Rejected | Superman fought Imperiex probes for several days, 
1. who can individually fight against and mortally wound Aquaman, 
1. who was causing the universe to collapse on itself.