Originally posted by PillarofOsiris
Yeah, and post crisis Superman has moved planets. The "planet" Gladiator moved didn't really look that large either. And if you think anyone who can move a planet is equal to PC Superman, you really have no clue what PC Superman's power levels were.
How can the planets ever really look large? Just think about how much an artist cheats to make this feat happen on the page. Superman would be a microscopic pinprick on the side of said planet (imagine him upside down in the middle of an intersection, telling everyone to move back because he's pushing the planet, thank you very much) - that is what it would really look like. But the limitations of a comics page shows the planet as looking like it could only fill a tall warehouse, because we have to see him on the side of it. Or think to the Celestials during The Infinity Gauntlet, directing whole planets to launch at Thanos with the IG; they were made to look like large beachballs as they tossed them the Titan's way. Large planets, small planets - you can't tell that at all.
And again - he was created to be Superman in another universe; that's why he gets called an analogue character (along with Hyperion, Supreme, Majestic etc.) becasue he is a deliberate photocopy of him and what his powerlevels were at that time. If DC was doing anything right with Superman in the late 1970's/early 1980's it's that they stopped ever bringing up the silly powers like super knitting and mathematics, and feats like a sneeze that destroys a (conveniently uninhabited) solar system. But still a massively powerful character who nonetheless got matched in strength by lots of non-flying characters - Mongul, Darkseid, Solomon Grundy - none of whom ever flew and seemingly moved a planet.