Some characters from Invincible might be able to beat him.
Viltrumites:
Invincible
Omni-man
Kid Omni-Man
Others
Allen the Alien - Virtually unkillable. Gets stronger with every traumatic assault on his body. He’s now stronger than Vultrimites.
MAYBE maybe maybe Sebastian Shaw?
In Red Son, Batman is portrayed as an honest-to-goodness vodka-swilling anarchist, complete with chin stubble and bear-fur hat. And he kicks the living shit out of Wonder Woman and Superman, Dark Knight style.
See, Superman is literally the Ubermensch, the god-within. He stands above and withstands all challenges untouched, hard and immutable. The truest vision of Superman is, in my opinion, the scene near the end of Kingdom Come when he is possessed by “a rage to cower Satan” and stands poised to bring down the entire United Nations on the heads of the foolish human ants below who have invoked his wrath. Superman is a character straight from Ayn Rand’s fevered imaginings, the Great Engineer whose wisdom is too powerful for ordinary mortals to grasp.
On the other hand, Batman is quintessentially human. In the Batman Beyond movie, “Joker Returns,” the Joker provokes Batman to blind rage with his sniggering – and completely accurate – observation, “Under all the sturm unt batarangs is just a little boy, crying for his mommy and daddy. It would be funny if it wasn’t so pathetic.” Where Superman is unassailable, Batman is all too frail and fragile, a broken man driven to ever greater and more desperate acts to keep the demons inside under control. He walks the line, gazing into the Nietzschean abyss every night, becoming, in his rage, like those he hates.
In other words, Batman is the tragic hero with that flaw which makes him like us, who shows us both that we can remake ourselves into something stronger when broken, and warns us of the consequences of doing so. Superman is just a Randian… well, superman.
Huh. At the time that JLA story was written (The start of Grant Morrison’s JLA run) Superman wasn’t nearly that fast–Flash was hundreds of times faster. The last I had hear Superman could fly around mach 50 if he pushed it. I guess the power creep has struck again for Big Blue?
As far as the fight with the White Martian went, yes, Zum wasn’t as fast, but he had Superman-level invulnerability and strength (The follow up White Martian arc showed them more than capable of kicking Superman’s ass in a straight up fight); White Martians are more powerful than “That pacifist” John John’z.
Add some super strength to that description and you get a Lobo/Superman fight, and yes it went like you’d suspect, although the two panel rematch I remember them having a few issues later didn’t go so well for biker-mime-boy.
It really depends on how Superman is fighting. If he is in idiot “I stand and slug it out with Doomsday” mode then he goes down a lot easier. If he uses his speed then he’s a tought opponent.
Flash and the Manhunter can beat him in either mode.
In Marvel, Thor, Beta Ray Bill, the Surfer and Thanos can beat him.
Batman and Reed Richards with prep can beat him.
I remember Red Son. I had to pass on it when it originally came out but I picked up the collected edition a number of years ago. It’s been awhile since I read it so I don’t remember the particulars of the plot but I do remember liking it quite a bit. It’s actually one of my favorite Superman stories because it presents Kal as almost an anti-villain, or even a Villain Protagonist. I’m going to pull it out tomorrow and give it a once over. After I do I might have some more specific thoughts about it.
I have to confess that I’m not that familiar with Randian philosophy, so I don’t feel comfortable commenting on that specifically but I do have some thoughts about the Nietzschean Ubermensch. I admit upfront that Rand’s concept may be very different from Nietzsche’s so this may not have any direct bearing on your argument but the philosophical Ubermensch has been a cloud that has hung over Superman’s head for a long time and I’m somewhat familiar with how it applies to Kal-El. Those Ubermensch overtones are there, I wouldn’t deny that, and they’re there rather deliberately I think. I want to pull out a quote from Thus Spake Zarathustra concerning the concept, (this is from the Wiki page, but it seems applicable…)
“I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him? … All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood, and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is ape to man? A laughing stock or painful embarrassment. And man shall be that to overman: a laughingstock or painful embarrassment. You have made your way from worm to man, and much in you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even now, too, man is more ape than any ape.… The overman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the overman shall be the meaning of the earth.… Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman—a rope over an abyss … what is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end.” - Frederich Nietzsche
Based on this, I think it needs to be said, the Ubermensch is not an inherently negative concept. It’s about overcoming our own limitations and reaching for something greater. This is not a bad thing, though the specific concept carries no particular ethical standpoint. Disregarding Superman’s alien heritage for a second, he’s essentially a human character raised in human values. This is why his adoption of differing political values is acceptable. It’s all based on where and when his spaceship happened to land. (If he lands in Soviet Russia in the 1930’s he becomes a communist. If he lands in modern day Kansas he becomes a humanist who values democracy.) Again, as I said upthread, he’s a representation of what we want him to be. Millar wanted to explore the idea of a “Soviet Superman”, and that’s what he did. The bearing that this has on his traditional characterization is that it removes his political affiliations while maintaining his basic personality. Even in Red Son, (as I recall, correct me if I’m wrong…), his basic personality is intact. At his core Superman is compassionate, egalitarian and, maybe most importantly, he accepts basic social norms, (whatever those may be in a given time and place), in spite of the fact that his relative power levels make casting those aside a very real possibility. He could remake and reshape society to his whims if he wanted to, but he doesn’t because he knows that that is inherently unethical. He wants to do what’s best for everyone, not just what he thinks is best for everyone. Of course it needs to be said that he has personal opinions about specific topics, but you’ll never see Superman endorsing those opinions. Clark Kent on the other hand…
IMO, the most natural representation of Superman isn’t the force of nature raging uncontrollably at the “injustices” of humanity. It’s the Kansas farmboy sitting in his parent’s kitchen asking them what he should do about a given problem. That’s the real Superman.
Saying Superman is just anything sells the character far short of what he actually is.
I love Batman. (More so even than Superman if you can believe that.) And I absolutely agree that he’s a tragic, all too human hero. Here’s the thing though, Batman is every bit the Ubermensch that Superman is, maybe even more, because he recognizes humanity’s failings on a much more personal level than Kal does. Your Dark Knight Returns quote from earlier represents this perfectly…
“They showed me that the world only makes sense when you force it to.”
This is Batman’s basic MO right here, stated very plainly, and it’s much more representative of the Ubermensch’s mindset. The world is broken, our ethical standards are meaningless, and they need to change. I have the answer and, come hell or high water, the world is going to understand this even if means I have to put on a costume and enforce justice one criminal at a time. Even at his best this seems to underwrite Bruce’s basic ethical code. Superman, outside of extreme moments and alternative interpretations, doesn’t place himself above humanity like this.
This is all way off topic though… If we’re going to continue we should probably create a new thread.
Do you think Mighty Mouse could beat up Superman?
Current Superman? Most likely, yes.