Thread by @ebonstorm

SHOULDN'T SUPERMAN INNATELY BE GOOD AT COMBAT?

The Answer-Man's mailbox runneth over this week. But only one question caught my eye.

Another variation on
• Can Superman actually fight?
• Isn't he just a brawler?

Let's deconstruct this:

@MarkBrooksArt #DepoweredSuperman

Q: Shouldn't Superman innately be good at combat?
A: Who says he isn’t?

Is it the fan who wants to say Batman is a better fighter because he’s been training since he was a teenager with his vaunted 127 martial arts?

Cool story, bro.

Or another fan who says that Wonder Woman is better because she’s been training to kill gods on Themyscira since she was a child?

Superman is a better fighter than both of them.

There. I said it.

Why? Because his mind is better than a Human one. He has total recall.

He has perfect proprioception. His control of his body is better than any Human martial artist.

Superman can go from fighting Human bank robbers to alien invaders without ever using a weapon and without killing anyone.

He’s been punching people right in the kisser since 1939.

Alien, robot, space amoeba, it doesn’t matter. Superman IS insanely good at combat.

A person who has as many superhuman abilities as Superman does, HAS TO BE.

He literally has to keep from punching people into paste or into space. Because he could do both.

Like this guy...

Superman has to be so skillful in the application of his strength, speed, and durability because without a perfect awareness of what’s going on around him someone is going to die and most likely because of collateral damage.

Superman could kill you in the accidental activation of his many dangerous powers!

The precision necessary to be Superman makes Batman and Wonder Woman’s training appear little more than parlor tricks.

I don’t care what panel says Wonder Woman is the equal of Superman. Even she admitted Superman is stronger than the ENTIRE JUSTICE LEAGUE. I have the receipts.

He punches Wonder Woman from the surface of the Sun and she lands on Earth. That's precision. And he didn't kill her.

Without his powers, he still has his memory and his proprioception.

He retains any of his fighting prowess making him capable of fighting anyone on the planet without powers and giving him a decent chance of success, because he fights

ALL THE TIME.

Writers forget this, playing up his effort to not harm people. His brain and body are still under his control, making him capable of surgical abuse of any normal Human w/o powers (with powers, Kryptonian)

Anyone who really fights senses his awareness of movement and tactics.

He has always used his powers tactically. We just never hear him talk about it. He must always slowly ramp up his powers after a thorough analysis of his opponent, to keep from killing them. He always dials DOWN.

When he dials up, he does so slowly.

Earth-lifting Superman probably doesn't punch anyone when he is in this amplified state.

Such immeasurable strength when applied to a living being should be akin to a comet landing on a city. With all the collateral damage involved.

Superman won't ever do that.

Yet this is the same guy who can walk around, open doors, lift and write with pencils and not kill his wife with the slightest touch.

Superman is one of the best fighting machines on the planet. The problem isn't the character's abilities, it's the writers who don't understand.

They don't realize what a terrifying weapon of destruction a trained Kryptonian could be. Superman knows. This is why he fears Zod and other Kryptonians breaking past their own innate barriers. Barriers built into the capacities of the Kryptonian genome.

Those barriers are instinctual otherwise they would never be able to control themselves.

The capacity to self-regulate also appears to be instinctual and adaptable.

Capable of moving worlds of immense size or writing a note with his heat vision from across the world.

Adding to the many people who have trained him, Batman, Wonder Woman, Mongul, Wildcat, and Muhammad Ali, Superman shouldn't have to worry about ANY ordinary Human in a fight and only the best should have any chance of beating him.

He knows how to take a beating. And give one.

I've always thought the death of Krypton as a galactic hit.

Anyone from a advanced species who truly understood how weaponized the Kryptonian genome was would never allow them to live.

Batman can go piss up a rope. Powers or no powers, Superman should own him like luggage.

SHOULDN'T SUPERMAN BE GOOD AT COMBAT?
Hell, yeah!
quora.com/Shouldn-t-Supe…

HOW SMART IS SUPERMAN?
As smart as the writers allow...
quora.com/How-smart-is-S…

The Answer-Man (@ebonstorm) appears on Scifi.radio (@scifi4wifi) writing about #popculture and #comics.

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