Upthread this version of Superman’s speed is given as Mach 10. That’s not nearly fast enough to destroy hundreds of silos across multiple states. Let alone in multiple countries. I suppose confusion about the type of attack would delay decision making, but whooo boy is that a risk especially since all countries would likely rebuild in the following years.
I’m not entirely up-to-date on the full scope of Superman’s powers. Can he kill someone anonymously by staring at them real hard? Make ‘em pop an artery or something, cause a stroke?
I once had a conversation with a coworker about the best superpower to have. He thought all of the traditional powers stand out too much; that you’d become a target for every government. Maybe they could stop you, or maybe you’d just never have another moment’s peace. His superpower of choice was to be able, using only focused concentration, to give any intended victim immediate, explosive diarrhea.
His working theory was that no one would ever trace that back to him, it wouldn’t be as fun as flying, but would be pretty satisfying when someone was being unreasonably rude to a waitress or cutting in line.
Can Superman do that?
Heat vision, in a pin point could do that- maybe.
For that matter, is Clark’s x-ray vision really x-rays? Because if so, he could give a lethal blast to someone without anybody being the wiser.
I can think of one very obvious way.
But I agree with @Snarky_Kong, one-week Superman couldn’t do it effectively either.
Even with x-ray vision how am I going to locate all of the nukes or even just Putin or some other despot? If the weather’s bad, it might take me the best part of a week just to locate the Ukrainian battlefront. And when I get there how confident am I that I’m targeting enemy troops? A week is not enough time for a novice Superman to do anything but cause general chaos.
Do people in this thread think new nukes can’t be built anymore or something? And does ersatz Superman magically have the location of the entire submarine fleet?
Also, note that if I were to choose Superman’s powers, Hamas would not be my first priority. The hostages, sure, free those, but you can rest assured there wouldn’t be a single settler or Israeli soldier in Palestinian territories by the end of the week.
At least light speed with corresponding perception speed. As an example he rebuilt the Moon in moments.
He can’t give people diarrhea by looking at them.
You’d have planetary level senses in addition to faster than light speed and perception capable of making the world frozen from your perspective. It would be trivial to find every submarine and nuclear weapon in the world either at range with super vision and hearing or simply searching everywhere.
What are “planetary level senses”? Certainly not the senses detailed in the OP’s power summary. He’s got superhuman senses, but he’s not omniscient, even on a purely Earth level.
Superman could’t travel all over the globe at faster than light speeds in Earth’s atmosphere without catastrophic consequences for everyone on the planet. Never mind underwater.
That was the origin of his heat vision power. Some writer decided that his X-ray vision must use actual X-rays, but there aren’t enough of those naturally occurring to use for vision, so he must be producing them himself, so he could also use those X-rays he produces to heat things up.
He can and has. In this scenario you can do the same without any negative effects like that.
He can sense things around the world and in the solar system whether it be heartbeats, talking, energy, radio waves, molecules etc. There’s virtually nothing you wouldn’t be able to detect or find if you put your mind to it and as I said there’s always simply searching everywhere at super speed if you couldn’t detect something otherwise. You wouldn’t be omniscient but still ridiculously capable. Rebirth Superman is a composite of the Post Crisis and New 52 versions so he (and you in this scenario) should have roughly the same abilities.
And he calls himself a superhero?
After the fifth or so Bad Person I visibly, publically dismembered in a hideous fashion, I am quite sure that my appearance in front of any other Bad Person would cause them to shit themselves.
I think that counts.
I remember his powers varied greatly based on who was writing him. I grew up reading secondhand copies of the old Julius Schwartz/Curt Swann (?) Superman books from the 70s, when he pretty much was omniscient/omnipotent.
I really liked Byrne’s take in the 80s, where he was mostly just a normal dude from Kansas who just happened to be an immensely powerful alien. No super-intellect or any of that other nonsense.
Is he back to his 70s overpowered self? Haven’t really read a comic in at least a couple of decades.