The truth about Post Crisis Supes
Courtesy of user Kyle_Rayner from Gaia Online. (big thanks Kyle)
Time to shut up a few people on this forum. 😉
In Superman Man of Steel #66, he once again acted as an effective shield, protecting cities around the world by blocking numerous "atom-smashing" force beams with his body. At one point he had 6 such beams trained on him simultaneously.
In Adventures of Superman #581, Superman allowed Adversary, a powerful magical foe, to hit him as hard as he could, without retaliation. Superman was literally punched halfway across the planet- from Metropolis, he literally landed in China- without any injury or loss of consciousness
But forget about being punched across the planet to China, how about through the planet to China? In Superman #181, Superman and Bizarro (his magically-created, brain damaged, "imperfect" duplicate) switched bodies. Superman (in Bizarro's body) punched Bizarro (in Superman's body) completely through the Earth and out the other end. Bizarro (in Superman's body) was slammed in through the ground in Metropolis and came out two panels later in China. He was shown ripping straight through the Earth?s crust, mantle, and core, and coming out on the other side of the planet. Superman's body was fully conscious and completely unharmed by the blow (Bizarro was smiling as usual).
In Man of Tomorrow #13, Superman harmlessly shrugged off a blast from Orion's Astro-Harness that blasted him across the planet from the North Pole to India.
Action Comics # 762: Superman harmlessly shrugged off a blow from the magical demon Etrigan. The blow actually knocked Superman from Earth's surface all the way to the moon (239,000 miles), a distance that is about 10 times the diameter of the Earth. Superman was virtually unfazed. In this issue he also shrugged off magical demon-fire (which he did previously in Action #589), and his super-lungs harmlessly inhaled the demon's magical gases.
In Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey, Superman survived, at ground zero, a blast equal to "a million nuclear bombs" (according to the energy being Waverider). The explosion was caused by the destruction of the power generator for the entire planet of Calaton; the energy was drawn from the planetary core. Superman did not suffer any physical damage, but was momentarily rendered inert, and stated that he felt concussed. He then got up and boxed a little more with Doomsday, who also survived the blast.
In Adventures of Superman #478, as part of the Time and Time Again storyline, Superman survived- without so much as batting an eye- the nuclear destruction of the entire moon in the year 2995. The moon had been lined with sufficient nuclear devices to disintegrate it in one shot. When the moon was obliterated, Superman was actually within the moon (structures had been built beneath the surface of the moon). He did not suffer any harm and did not lose consciousness.
Superman's ability to survive immersion in the sun is well documented by now. In Adventures of Superman #480, Superman survived immersion in the sun for the first time, but with great difficulty. This was actually a RED sun at the time, due to the Eradicator's interference. In both the Superman: Last God of Krypton one shot and Superman Man of Steel #50, Superman survived immersion in the outer layers of the Earth's yellow sun enjoyably, received extra power from the sun, and effortlessly escaped the sun?s gravitational pull. Furthermore, in both Action Comics # 782 and Superman Man of Steel #64, Superman survived the core of the sun without any problems. The pressure at the core of the sun is equal to 250 billion Earth atmospheres.
In JLA #41, Superman absorbed the energy of the Mageddon Warhead, a device capable, at the minimum, of vaporizing half a galaxy. Writer Grant Morrison intended Mageddon to be "the primordial annihilator" capable of literally destroying everything. Visibly distressed by the absorption, Superman still suffered no harm whatsoever, and even smiled afterwards.
Man of Steel #30: Standing on Earth's surface, Superman punched Lobo into orbit and beyond with one uppercut.
Adventure of Superman #473: From Earth, Superman threw an alien space craft clear of Earth?s gravity and into outer space. This craft was larger than an aircraft carrier and over a mile long (a typical aircraft carrier is about a 1/4 of a mile long and weighs about 100,000 tons, so this ship was about 4x that size)
Several events show Superman as a moon-mover. In JLA # 7, as Electro-Superman, he halted the fall of the Moon towards Earth (caused by Neron's magical machinations), then moved the Moon back its proper position in orbit. He later commented that he's more powerful as "regular" Superman. Writer Grant Morrison and artist Howard Porter had originally intended the moon-moving event in JLA #7 be done by "regular" Superman , but DC forced them to use Electro-Supes. This event is butressed by several more. In JLA: The Century War, ancient "alchemical engines" were causing the moon to fall towards the Earth. Superman and Green Lantern took turns holding the moon back against the "geometrically increasing force" that was causing it to fall. Superman got the last "moon-bracing" shift. In Superman Man of Steel #30, Superman grabbed, easily broke the forward movement of, and easily threw in the opposite direction, a space ship the size of a small moon. In JLA # 58, Superman , Wonder Woman and Green Lantern collaborated to tow Earth's moon a distance of 238,900 miles in mere seconds, indicating a fantastic acceleration, and then pulled the moon out of Earth's gravity (which increases its weight tremendously). As he is universally regarded as the JLA's most powerful member, I'm inclined to give Superman more than one-third, and - conservatively - about one-half, the work effort. In the Lex 2000 special, with a single strike, Superman split one of Saturn's moons in half. Saturn's moons are small moons.
Action Comics #782: After emerging from the sun energized, Superman physically pushed WarWorld, (a small, Pluto-sized planet) across the solar system and into a boom tube. WarWorld did engage a "full throttle countermeasure" in resistance Superman?s push. We can see WarWorld's engines (which encompass nearly an entire hemisphere of WarWorld's surface) firing in resistance, to no avail. WarWorld's engines allow WarWorld to travel at faster than light speeds through space, so they generate the power to accelerate a planet beyond light speed. "How is he moving my planet! The Kryptonian does not have that power!" Braniac's disbelief is reasonable since WarWorld's engines had no shortage of power ; WarWorld had just pirated the energy of Imperiex - energy gleaned from the devouring of many galaxies. (Hence Imperiex's reputation as the "Devourer of Galaxies."😉 Please note that Superman was energized beyond his usual power levels at this time.
Action Comics Annual #7: Fighting in space, Superman successfully resisted the pull from a black hole that had opened up directly below (inches from) his feet. The miniature black hole had been induced by advanced alien (Ht'ros) war technology.
Superman #13: Flew around the equator in a matter of seconds, indicating a speed of well over 1,000,000 mph, or roughly 1350 times the speed of sound.
Man of Steel #110: Standing in one spot, Superman used his super speed to vibrate his body invisible.
continued in next post