Powers and abilities of Superman

The powers of DC Comics character Superman have changed since his introduction in the 1930s. Many other DC Comics characters have Superman's abilities from Kryptonian DNA, such as Zod, Kara Zor-El, and even the hybrid Superboy. The extent of Superman's powers peaked during the 1970s and 1980s to the point where various writers found it difficult to create suitable challenges for the character. Lex Luthor described Superman as a "living god" on Earth. As a result, his powers were significantly reduced when his story was rebooted by writer John Byrne after the Crisis on Infinite Earths series. After Byrne's departure, Superman's powers were gradually increased again, though with greater in-story explanation than his Pre-Crisis incarnation.

His powers include flight, super strength, x-ray vision, invulnerability, speed, heat vision, freezing breath, super flare (a recently added massive, omnidirectional heat blast that obliterates anything within a quarter mile radius), and superhuman senses. The limits of these abilities vary depending on the writer. However, as his name suggests, Superman has frequently been depicted achieving feats of immeasurable magnitude, although this generally depends upon which kind of Superman is used.

Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, sees Superman as a great example of what not to look for in the search for alien life: "The fact that he's very humanoid in his appearance and behavior is of course a conceit that's adopted not only by the comic books, but also by Hollywood. ... If Superman looked like a typewriter, you'd end up having very little sympathy for his inner torment." Simon Conway Morris asserts that the same basic body plan that has served so well on Earth would probably develop on other planets where life takes root: "If this sort of cosmic evolutionary convergence is the norm, it may well be that intelligent life elsewhere would look more like the fictional Superman than like Shostak's typewriter." Superman and Kryptonians in general, only share one characteristic with human beings: our external physical, bilaterally symmetrical appearance. Kryptonians resemble Humans sufficiently closely for them to be able to pass as Human but only from a cursory physical (superficial) inspection. Any trained medical personnel should be able to determine a Kryptonian is not Human with only a modest toolkit of scientific equipment.

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