# What does it take to hurt Superman (ASIDE from Kryptonite)?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-hurt-superman-aside-from-kryptonite/642039
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [November 25, 2012, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-hurt-superman-aside-from-kryptonite/642039 "2012-11-25T04:33:54Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2012, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-hurt-superman-aside-from-kryptonite/642039/1 "2012-11-25T04:33:54Z")
Like it says in the title: What does it take to hurt or kill Superman, aside from Kryptonite?
(No “need answer fast”…this time.)
Now, I realize that this may be a difficult question to answer—DC comics continuity being stitched together out of a dozen different universes over 70+ years, AND it periodically gets rewritten. But I’d be interested in finding out at least a ballpark estimate.
I’ve never been a big Superman fan, bit I’ve picked up a few tidbits over the years: He’s supposed to be vulnerable to magic or magic items; the limits of early Superman’s invulnerability were that “only an exploding shell could pierce his skin”; and back in the 90s, Doomsday beat him to death/near death with brute force, at least enough to leave him bruised and bloodied.
(Also, of course, being exposed to the rays of a red star rather than a yellow one, negating his superpowers and leaving him as vulnerable as a regular human, but I’m not counting that.)
So, I ask you…if I need to beat up Superman but have no Kryptonite, what are my options?
---
### Author:  [@Lanzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lanzy)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2012, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-hurt-superman-aside-from-kryptonite/642039/2 "2012-11-25T04:38:45Z")
Use Magic, or a kryptonian weapon.
---
### Author:  [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2012, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-hurt-superman-aside-from-kryptonite/642039/3 "2012-11-25T04:41:59Z")
Actually, that brings up something I’ve wondered for a while… Do we know for a stone-cold fact that Kryptonite will kill Superman? They always act like it will in the comics and in Smallville, but given the number of times he’s been exposed to it, it hasn’t tended to actually kill him.
Where does this come from?
---
### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2012, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-hurt-superman-aside-from-kryptonite/642039/4 "2012-11-25T04:42:05Z")
I recall one comic where, as a teenager, he had to get a vaccination. School requirement. But needles wouldn’t pierce his skin. I think he solved the problem by finding a doctor so near-sighted that he did not notice the needle breaking. He then flew at lightning speed into some sort of sharp object, ramming it with his upper arm. This left a very faint vaccination-looking mark.
So I’m guessing nothing short of a supernova explosion.
---
### Author:  [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2012, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-hurt-superman-aside-from-kryptonite/642039/5 "2012-11-25T04:54:46Z")
Psychologically he should be as vulnerable as anyone, I’d concentrate on either hurting things he loves that are vulnerable or attacking him psychologically.
---
### Author:  [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2012, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-hurt-superman-aside-from-kryptonite/642039/6 "2012-11-25T04:58:13Z")
A sneek attack by Supergirl or some other Kryptonian?
---
### Author:  [@FordTaurusSHO94](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FordTaurusSHO94)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2012, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-hurt-superman-aside-from-kryptonite/642039/7 "2012-11-25T05:00:00Z")
An evenly matched opponent can hurt or kill him. Read the Doomsday arc for that.
---
### Author:  [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2012, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-hurt-superman-aside-from-kryptonite/642039/8 "2012-11-25T05:01:26Z")
Red sun radiation is the obvious first answer: not just red light, but the particular wavelengths that apparently force out the energy his solar-battery cells have soaked up and which he cannot metabolize for super-powers.
Magic is of varying effectiveness. Sometimes he’s just not particularly invulnerable to it, but it still takes some doing to hurt him; sometimes it effs him up entirely.
_Hearing_ ultrasonics can hurt him, though they don’t hurt any part of his body than his ears. I’ve always fanwanked it that super-hearing and invulnerability are incompatible, so when he turns on the former he unconsciously deactivates the latter. Likewise bright lights and perhaps lasers directed straight at his eyes might be painful if he was using telescopic or microscopic vision at the time.
And of course if you’re super-strong yourself, and have time, brute force can do it.
---
### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2012, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-hurt-superman-aside-from-kryptonite/642039/9 "2012-11-25T05:31:53Z")
Tease him about the fact that his real parents are dead, and he’s ADOPTED.
Wait, does hurting his feelings even _count?_
---
### Author:  [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2012, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-hurt-superman-aside-from-kryptonite/642039/10 "2012-11-25T05:34:12Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#):
>
> Tease him about the fact that his real parents are dead, and he’s ADOPTED.
>
> Wait, does hurting his feelings even _count?_
You’re going to taunt a guy who can set you on fire by LOOKING at you?
---
### Author:  [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2012, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-hurt-superman-aside-from-kryptonite/642039/11 "2012-11-25T08:01:06Z")
Enough of pretty much anything can hurt him, at least post-Crisis. Big jolts of electricity seem relatively effective, at least at causing him pain and stunning him a bit, and energy weapons can mark him. It takes a lot to do him any significant harm, though. He’s also at least somewhat vulnerable to psychic assaults. Trapping him in a dream seems popular. That might incapacitate him long enough to come up with something.
If you’re looking to kill him without resorting to kryptonite or red sunlight, your best shot is probably asphyxiation. He has to breathe (again, post-Crisis). It would be tricky, of course–his invulnerability protects him from decompression, and he can probably hold his breath for a long time, so you would have to be able to keep him in an oxygen-free environment for a significant period.
If you’ve got space-capability, you could deploy a decoy ship with a phony distress signal at least a few light-minutes from the nearest breathable atmosphere. Rig a self-destruct for the ship that will wreck whatever he’s using for life support–a suit, or just a mask and oxygen tanks, will be far more fragile than he is. When he takes the bait, blow the ship and leave him stranded too far out to reach air before he loses consciousness.
If you’re _not_ Lex Luthor, or Batman in contingency mode, and are constrained by your resources, you might try an old-fashioned moral-dilemma deathtrap. Set up an airtight structure in the middle of a public and densely populated place and lure him into investigating it. Seal it on him and flush it with a mix of argon and nerve gas. If he breaks out, it will flood the area with the nerve gas, killing large numbers of innocent people. Then you hope he doesn’t figure out a way to escape without releasing the gas before he passes out. It’s dicey, of course–heroes get out of stuff like that all the time–but it is a way that a non-powered individual with realistic (though substantial) resources could at least make the attempt.
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#):
>
> Magic is of varying effectiveness. Sometimes he’s just not particularly invulnerable to it, but it still takes some doing to hurt him; sometimes it effs him up entirely.
Generally, I would expect direct applications of magic to bypass his invulnerability, while evoked effects (fireballs, lightning, and so forth) would affect him more-or-less like natural versions of those phenomena. So hitting him with a fireball would be roughly as effective as using a flamethrower on him–i.e., it would annoy him and possibly interfere with his vision a bit. A spell to turn him into an aardvark, on the other hand, would probably work…though it might leave you with a super-strong, invulnerable aardvark.
Unfortunately, the writers have been nowhere near that logical.
---
### Author:  [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2012, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-hurt-superman-aside-from-kryptonite/642039/12 "2012-11-25T08:23:29Z")
> [@Balance](#):
>
> Enough of pretty much anything can hurt him, at least post-Crisis. Big jolts of electricity seem relatively effective, at least at causing him pain and stunning him a bit, and energy weapons can mark him. It takes a lot to do him any significant harm, though. He’s also at least somewhat vulnerable to psychic assaults. Trapping him in a dream seems popular. That might incapacitate him long enough to come up with something.
>
> If you’re looking to kill him without resorting to kryptonite or red sunlight, your best shot is probably asphyxiation. He has to breathe (again, post-Crisis). It would be tricky, of course–his invulnerability protects him from decompression, and he can probably hold his breath for a long time, so you would have to be able to keep him in an oxygen-free environment for a significant period.
>
> If you’ve got space-capability, you could deploy a decoy ship with a phony distress signal at least a few light-minutes from the nearest breathable atmosphere. Rig a self-destruct for the ship that will wreck whatever he’s using for life support–a suit, or just a mask and oxygen tanks, will be far more fragile than he is. When he takes the bait, blow the ship and leave him stranded too far out to reach air before he loses consciousness.
>
> If you’re _not_ Lex Luthor, or Batman in contingency mode, and are constrained by your resources, you might try an old-fashioned moral-dilemma deathtrap. Set up an airtight structure in the middle of a public and densely populated place and lure him into investigating it. Seal it on him and flush it with a mix of argon and nerve gas. If he breaks out, it will flood the area with the nerve gas, killing large numbers of innocent people. Then you hope he doesn’t figure out a way to escape without releasing the gas before he passes out. It’s dicey, of course–heroes get out of stuff like that all the time–but it is a way that a non-powered individual with realistic (though substantial) resources could at least make the attempt.
> Generally, I would expect direct applications of magic to bypass his invulnerability, while evoked effects (fireballs, lightning, and so forth) would affect him more-or-less like natural versions of those phenomena. So hitting him with a fireball would be roughly as effective as using a flamethrower on him–i.e., it would annoy him and possibly interfere with his vision a bit. A spell to turn him into an aardvark, on the other hand, would probably work…though it might leave you with a super-strong, invulnerable aardvark.
>
> Unfortunately, the writers have been nowhere near that logical.
Doesn’t bother me. Magic SHOULD have rules that are difficult to follow logically.
Your deathtrap won’t work, by the way. Even the Man of Steel Superman was pretty much immune to all terrestrial poisons, able to confine masses of toxic gasses in his lungs without harm simply by breathing in, and capable of doing multiple other stunts during said inhalation. Kal’s just going to use bust out of the cage, inhale the gas before it can do any harm, and fly up to the edge of space to exhale it.
---
### Author:  [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2012, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-hurt-superman-aside-from-kryptonite/642039/13 "2012-11-25T14:55:15Z")
I’ve only read a very little bit of Superman, and I still don’t understand why some things “count” in comic books and some don’t, but getting all up IN our yellow sun did him in in All-Star Superman. Maybe. Sort of.
---
### Author:  [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2012, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-hurt-superman-aside-from-kryptonite/642039/14 "2012-11-25T15:15:24Z")
> [@FordTaurusSHO94](#):
>
> An evenly matched opponent can hurt or kill him. Read the Doomsday arc for that.
I was wondering about that…is there anything like a precise definition of what “evenly matched” attack amounts to? In Gigajoules, if possible?
> [@Balance](#):
>
> If you’re looking to kill him without resorting to kryptonite or red sunlight, your best shot is probably asphyxiation. He has to breathe (again, post-Crisis). It would be tricky, of course–his invulnerability protects him from decompression, and he can probably hold his breath for a long time, so you would have to be able to keep him in an oxygen-free environment for a significant period.
Hmmm…it almost sounds like my old friend [Nitrogen asphyxiation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_asphyxiation) might do the trick. If Kryptonian physiology in that regard is anything like that of humans (iffy, true), Superman might be suffocated _without him noticing anything was wrong_ until he lost consciousness.
I can think of at least six different ways that that scheme would fail, though, depending on how clever the writer was feeling. Not counting the ol’ “good, he’s at our mercy! Now let’s tie him to a death machine that doesn’t work!” standby.
---
### Author:  [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2012, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-hurt-superman-aside-from-kryptonite/642039/15 "2012-11-25T15:35:44Z")
> [@Zsofia](#):
>
> I’ve only read a very little bit of Superman, and I still don’t understand why some things “count” in comic books and some don’t, but getting all up IN our yellow sun did him in in All-Star Superman. Maybe. Sort of.
No, being in the Sun saved him, and he is “currently” keeping the fusion reaction going by hand.
---
### Author:  [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2012, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-hurt-superman-aside-from-kryptonite/642039/16 "2012-11-25T15:47:15Z")
Turn him into a monkey.
---
### Author:  [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2012, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-hurt-superman-aside-from-kryptonite/642039/17 "2012-11-25T15:48:54Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#):
>
> No, being in the Sun saved him, and he is “currently” keeping the fusion reaction going by hand.
To be specific:
Kal flies close to the Sun on a rescue (something he wouldn’t have blinked at in the Silver Age, during which he sometimes went SWIMMING in stars). Being so close to the star results in his getting supercharged with solar energy. In the short term he becomes a lot more powerful, but this is just temporary; his cells have taken in more juice than they can handle, and their structure starts breaking down, resulting in his slower becoming weaker; he’s not able to stop this process, let alone reverse it, and believes it will eventually be fatal. For the usual convoluted comic book reasons, hte Sun is damaged in such a fashon that it will not be able to support life on Earth. This clearly changes the sort of radiation it’s putting out (the color changes from gold to blue). Kal flies into the sun to use his powers to repair it; implicitly the different radiation is better for him and begins to heal the damage done by the initial supercharge. Nonetheless he’s generally thought to be dead, but Lois doesn’t believe it.
---
### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2012, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-hurt-superman-aside-from-kryptonite/642039/18 "2012-11-25T15:59:07Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#):
>
> You’re going to taunt a guy who can set you on fire by LOOKING at you?
Well, I could hope that it won’t work through tears, but I think you’ve got a pretty good point.
---
### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2012, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-hurt-superman-aside-from-kryptonite/642039/19 "2012-11-25T16:05:47Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#):
>
> I recall one comic where, as a teenager, he had to get a vaccination. School requirement. But needles wouldn’t pierce his skin. I think he solved the problem by finding a doctor so near-sighted that he did not notice the needle breaking. He then flew at lightning speed into some sort of sharp object, ramming it with his upper arm. This left a very faint vaccination-looking mark.
I read one where he gathered as many different pieces of kryptonite as he could, and exposed himself to them (in series, not all at once). The theory was that if he had been exposed to a specific chunk of kryptonite, after he recovered from the exposure that specific chunk would no longer have any effect on him. This process left him very weakened. He did recover, but while he was convalescing he took advantage of his weakened state to get both a shot _AND_ a haircut.
---
### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2012, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-hurt-superman-aside-from-kryptonite/642039/20 "2012-11-25T16:19:56Z")
Homeopathy. Continuously diluting your remedy for decades would make it super powerful.
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-hurt-superman-aside-from-kryptonite/642039.md?page=2)