# Superman's powers - How many were present originally and how were the new ones introduced? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 8, 2012, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supermans-powers-how-many-were-present-originally-and-how-were-the-new-ones-introduced/627580 "2012-07-08T03:28:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2012, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supermans-powers-how-many-were-present-originally-and-how-were-the-new-ones-introduced/627580/41 "2012-07-10T15:11:38Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Added as needed – and sometimes dropped immediately afterwards, like his super disguise power (th ability to remold his face) Did he call it his Super Duper? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2012, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supermans-powers-how-many-were-present-originally-and-how-were-the-new-ones-introduced/627580/42 "2012-07-10T16:43:39Z")
> [@Tom\_Scud](#): > > Since no one else has mentioned the [“shooting a tiny Superman out of his hand”](http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=superman%20shooting%20a%20tiny%20superman%20out%20of%20his%20hand&source=web&cd=9&ved=0CGYQFjAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.comicsalliance.com%2F2010%2F06%2F11%2Fask-chris-13-batman-vs-psychiatry-and-supermans-strangest-p%2F&ei=VTT8T6zbJIis8QTEzKTFBg&usg=AFQjCNGM8lMPfiBYGKxejD_ztCxcSFLFtQ) power, I will. (Apologies for hideous google link; not sure if Comics Alliance is blocked from work.) I don’t know if that “counts” as a new super-power, any more than would changes to Superman brought about by red kryptonite, which always affected him differently. IOW it wasn’t the one-time mention of a super power, just a plot device. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2012, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supermans-powers-how-many-were-present-originally-and-how-were-the-new-ones-introduced/627580/43 "2012-07-11T14:54:43Z")
> [@Krokodil](#): > > A lot of crazy-ass powers were added in the Silver Age and quietly dropped after Crisis. At least Silver Age Superman had names for his dumb powers (like “super-eating” or “super-hypnotism”). Silver Age Green Lantern would just shine a beam out of his ring that could undo anything. E.g. “The Justice League got turned into a bunch of super-babies? Well, I’ll just fix that by shining my ring on them, durr durr!” Boo to that. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2012, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supermans-powers-how-many-were-present-originally-and-how-were-the-new-ones-introduced/627580/44 "2012-07-11T14:58:51Z")
> [@hogarth](#): > > At least Silver Age Superman had names for his dumb powers (like “super-eating” or “super-hypnotism”). Silver Age Green Lantern would just shine a beam out of his ring that could undo anything. E.g. “The Justice League got turned into a bunch of super-babies? Well, I’ll just fix that by shining my ring on them, durr durr!” > > Boo to that. Morpheus once called Kyle Rayner’s ring a wishing ring, and I always thought that was pretty accurate. I don’t even mind the ring’s powers being unlimited in variety, so long as it was clear that as effects grew more elaborate they required more will & imagination to accomplish, and thus some things might be theoretically possible but practically undoable. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2012, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supermans-powers-how-many-were-present-originally-and-how-were-the-new-ones-introduced/627580/45 "2012-07-11T15:27:07Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Added as needed – and sometimes dropped immediately afterwards, like his super disguise power (th ability to remold his face) > [@Enderw24](#): > > Did he call it his Super Duper? Only when he was trying hard to look like Gary Cooper. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_A.Robrin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sam_a.robrin/32/14497_2.png) [@Sam\_A.Robrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_A.Robrin)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supermans-powers-how-many-were-present-originally-and-how-were-the-new-ones-introduced/627580/46 "2012-07-12T06:52:00Z")
I remember the end of the first “Titano the Super-Ape” appearance reprinted in _Superman Annual_ #2 depicting Superman using, according to caption, “his super-imagination,” and wondering as only a 7-year-old can what sort of super-power that was. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2012, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supermans-powers-how-many-were-present-originally-and-how-were-the-new-ones-introduced/627580/47 "2012-07-14T23:40:31Z")
> [@astro](#): > > My favorite part of the [Morrison “All Star” series](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-Star_Superman) is where super intellect, God of Progress Luthor won’t see Clark Kent as Superman despite all these “in your face clues” pointing that way. John Byrne did that decades earlier in Superman vol 2 #2. Confronted with evidence that Clark is Superman, Luthor flat out refuses to believe someone as powerful as Superman would ever pretend to be a mere mortal. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2012, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supermans-powers-how-many-were-present-originally-and-how-were-the-new-ones-introduced/627580/48 "2012-07-14T23:44:37Z")
The most interesting part of Supes’ story is [how it started.](http://davidszondy.com/future/man/superman.htm) > [@](#): > > Everyone is familiar with the character of Superman, if only as an allusion in political cartoons or figures of speech. Most people know the bare bones of his story; that he’s a visitor from another planet who comes to Earth, where the peculiar conditions make him faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings at a single bound. > > But what many people don’t know is that the name “Superman” isn’t just an affectation given to a chap with magical powers. When Joe Schuster and Jerry Siegel created Superman back in the 1930s they conceived him as a literally superhuman creature-- and probably as neat an encapsulation of the popular idea of the future of man as there could be. > > Today the back story is that Superman came from the planet Krypton, a world of high gravity and a red sun, and that the low gravity and yellow Sun of Earth endow him with his marvellous powers. But in the original version of the story, Superman’s Krypton was a world where evolution was millions of years more advanced than on Earth and whose inhabitants were possessed of superhuman abilities as a matter of course. The early Superman’s powers didn’t include anything magical such as flying or heat vision. Instead, he was an idealised and exaggerated version of desirable human abilities. He was incredibly strong, fast, impervious to anything short of a direct hit from a tank round, incredibly intelligent, and could see through solid objects because his senses were more developed than those of ordinary mortals. > > Small wonder that one of Superman’s nicknames is “The Man of Tomorrow.” They were originally going to call him “The Man of Later This Afternoon,” but that was regarded as a bit silly. ---
**Author:** ![Slade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@Slade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slade)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2012, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supermans-powers-how-many-were-present-originally-and-how-were-the-new-ones-introduced/627580/49 "2012-07-15T08:58:49Z")
I remember reading a Superboy comic as a child, and being puzzled when Superboy mentioned his “super photographic memory”. I’d never heard the term “photographic memory” at that point, but my Dad did have one of the early Polaroid Instamatic cameras, which fed out a photographic print from a slot at the bottom of the unit. I could only imagine that Superboy’s power must work in the same way, perhaps producing a Polaroid print from a slot in the back of his head. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supermans-powers-how-many-were-present-originally-and-how-were-the-new-ones-introduced/627580.md?page=2)