I Have Issues 27

The 20 Greatest Superman Fights

Part 3

Superman VS. The Elite (Action Comics 775, 2001)

The Elite are are Super-group of anti Heroes modeled after the Authority. 

In a time when heroes are getting darker and more ruthless, Joe Kelly wrote this store to show everyone why everything Superman stands for is nothing to joke about or be ashamed of.

The Elite led by Manchester Black are killing villains and they butt heads with Superman every time  Finally the blue boy scout punches the Elite Member known as Hat and they challenge has been set. 

Meeting on Io, one of Jupiter’s moons, Black uses his considerable telekinetic abilities to throw Superman through several rock formations. Managerie sends some of symbiotic alien creatures to attack Supes who tears through them right before she slices him across the face with her claws. 

(Menagerie is essentially a cross between Witchblade and the Darkness in terms of powers.) 

The Elite known as Hat calls a stone idol down and Superman breaks through but falls to th ground in agony and Black causes him to have a stroke. Coldcast grips the Kryptonians head and shoots electromagnetics into his skull.

The Elite stand triumphant as they believe they just vaporized Superman. Suddenly Menagerie appears to spontaneously explode.

The wind picks up around the team and causes Hat’s lungs start to collapse. Then Coldcast disappears in a streak of red yellow and blue.

Superman wasn’t vaporized he just flew away so fast that no one could see him and then started attacking the team at speeds that would make the Flash say, “fuck! Slow down!”

Leaving only Manchester Black and a pissed off Superman, Supes uses his telescopic xray heat vision to essentially lobotomize the powers out of Blacks brain.

Black cries and tells Superman that he didn't win, after all he just became what he hated about them. Superman explains that all he did was incapacitate The Elite, they will wake up in a ton of pain but still be alive. As for Black all he really did was give him a focused concussion. He just made him think he killed his team and violated his brain. 

In the end Superman proved that murder and ugliness in heroes is the easy way and that he will never stop fighting until the world is as good as he knows it can be. 

The fight and the message behind it was so cool they made a whole cartoon movie out of it.

Superman VS. Supergirl (well sort of.)(Action Comics 644, 1989)

The first post-crisis Supergirl was a shapeshifting being from another universe known as Matrix. 

Created by the Lex Luthor of that universe her mind was modeled after Lana Lang whom Lex was in love with. 

Ending up in the primary universe, she was raised by Martha and Jonathan Kent until she became mentally unbalanced and started to believe she was Clark Kent and changed her shape to match him.

The real Clark knows he has to stop her but as he is formulating a plan she blasts him with heat vision. After Clark recovers and reaches the house he finds that Matrix has taken his parents and Lana away. Finding them in an old abandoned rock quarry.

Best Scooby Doo location name ever!

Superman flies into the ground and comes up from the floor and knocks Matrix for a loop. Supes finds himself in a strange battle against a being that is inherently good but also actually believes herself to be the real Superman. Luckily for the actual really real Superman he is stronger and he shows it by sending Matrix through the roof and into the clouds. 

No pictures of this fight on the Net unfortunately, but here  is a custom figure to let you know what Matrix/Supergirl looks like.

Clark tries to reason with her but Matrix uses her invisibility and follows that up with a diving choke into the ground. As the two beings batter the living shit out of each other Lana is knocked down and trapped underneath a large piece of rafter.  Matrix rips a large pipe out of the ground and tosses it at Superman who corkscrew flies through it and punches  Matrix into next week! 

Superman uses the few extra minutes he just bought himself to save Lana and his parents from the collapsing quarry building. Matrix returns and Clark continues to try to reason with her even as she fires a full force psychokinetic blast from her hands. As Clark continues to walk through her blast he eventually talks her down and Matrix promptly disappears as she deems herself to be too dangerous. 

Superman VS. Captain Marvel (Kingdom Come # 4, 1996)

In what is the prettiest Superman fight on the list we have the Man of Steel versus the Mightiest Mortal. 

If you haven't read Kingdom Come then stop reading this article and go to your local comic store and pick up a copy. Captain Marvel has been brainwashed in this Future/Elseworlds tale by Lex Luthor. As Superman goes to stop a supehuman war from taking place at the Gulag prison, he is intercepted by Marvel mid-flight  Even without Kal's weakness against magic, Captain Marvel's strength matches up pretty well against the Kryptonian. 

The two trade blows and go into a test of strength while Superman tries to reason with Batson. Marvel responds with a two handed punch that sends Supes across the ground.

Meanwhile the government fires atomic missiles to clear all the super-humans from the Earth in one shot.

Superman comes back with searing focuses heat vision that nearly fells Marvel, but the mightiest mortal calls down the thunder with a call of SHAZAM! Normally the thunder comes down and changes Marvel to Billy Batson and vice versa but Marvel cleverly uses super speed to get out of the way of the lighting and Superman takes the full brunt of it. 

Captain Marvel continues to strike Supes with the lightning to the point where the man of steel is bleeding from his nose and ears and down on all fours. Pushing up at the last second, Superman stops Marvel from moving and grips his face to stop him from changing again. 

In this instance Superman knows he could crush the human Billy easily but he is stopped when he hears the atomic bomb coming down. 

Heat vision doesn't work so Superman is off to take out the bomb when Billy transforms back into Captain Marvel and makes the right decision in the end as he stops the bomb with his lightning.

The two tough guys of the DC universe have fought several times before and since.

I haven't read most of them but another that's worth mentioning is the short fight between the two in JLA 29

In this one Captain Marvel catches Superman by surprise and with a lot of luck and that whole magic vulnerability he takes him down.

Respect.

As a side note back when I was a kid in the 80's we had a fun arcade game for Superman that was two players.

God I loved that game!

By today's standards the game is a pretty one note affair but the second player played a red version of Superman who me and my friends always referred to as Captain Marvel even though he was clearly Superman Red from that old story-line.

This zany story-line was repeated at the end of the energy Superman saga as well.

But I digress.

Speaking of two Supermen!

Superman VS. Superman (Infinite Crisis #5, 2006)

To go through the whole background behind the story line that led to this would require a retelling of the state of the DC universe in the 70’s and early 80’s as well as the synopsis of Crisis on Infinite Earths as well as Infinite Crisis. So the quick and dirty background for the uninitiated is that there were two Supermen. One from Earth 2 who was named Kal-L and was the Superman from the 30’s that was a member of the JSA and fought in World War 2. Of course now in modern times he is much older than the counterpart from the regular universe. 

Kal-L

The one from Earth 1 universe is known as Kal-El and he is the Superman we all know in his late 20’s early 30’s age range. 

Kal-El

In Infinite Crisis the Earth 2 Superman’s version of Lois Lane is deathly ill and Superman needs to find a cure but is convinced by his Luthor that it’s the heroes of the Earth 1’s fault. In trying to heal Lois he ends up on a recreation of his Earth 2 world. At first it appears Lois will recover but then she passes away and Kal-L screams so loud that Superman of Earth 1 can hear him and takes off. (To alleviate some confusion I am going to call Earth 2 Superman Kal and Earth 1 Superman, Superman.) 

Landing on Earth 2 Superman finds Kal in his grief and before he can reason with him he gets a car shoved into him, reminiscent of the first issue of Action Comics. 

The fight is a short and extremely emotional brawl between the two that destroys an entire city block until Wonder Woman stops by and Lasso’s Kal up and stops the fight from getting further out of hand and y’know cooler.

Which brings us to...

Superman VS. Superboy Prime (Infinite Crisis 7, 2006)

Ok now remember how I explained the two Supermen in the last part? Well now I have explain that there was an Earth called Earth Prime. Earth Prime was essentially our universe, the one where you’re reading this on your phone, laptop or what have you. This was until they created a character named Clark Kent who was a fan of Superman on his/our world and dressed up as such during a Halloween party. 

Halley’s Comet passes by and triggers Clark Kent’s Kryptonian abilities and he becomes the only hero of his world. (I actually really love this concept and wish we could have gotten more stories from it. We did get the great Kurt Busiek written Secret Identity but not much else. The concept is reminiscent of Counter Earth in Marvel.) 

So just like Kal-L Superman of Earth 2 in the battle above, Superboy Prime also comes to our universe but his mind becomes twisted and unstable. 

It takes the combined might of the Green Lantern Corps and both Supermen to take the insanely powerful villain down. 

Why is he so powerful you ask? Because he was Superboy pre-crisis before the power levels of all the characters were dialed back so they couldn't just fly back in time and other Super friend’s bullshit like that.

Hmm, what powers will I have in this episode?

The battle takes place in space and the Supermen take a hold of Prime and fly him into the remnants of Krypton that is really just floating Kryptonite rocks. Prime laughs as he points out that the Kryponite of this universe doesn't hurt him. They then fly him through a red sun and land on the planet that is a Green Lantern itself Mogo! 

Amazingly not a Grant Morrison idea.

Superman recovers first and as he goes to check on Kal gets blasted from behind by Prime with his supercharged swinging seventies power levels. Suddenly his heat vision stops working and Kal punches him from behind. Prime realizes that they flew him through the red sun to destroy his armor that allowed him to store solar power. Still a total powerhouse, Prime takes Kal down and starts a ground and pound that turns his face into a bloody butchered mess. Superman attacks Prime from behind tossing him from Kal. Prime responds with a backhanded fist full of kryptonite to Superman's face as he strangles the man of steel to near death. 

Recovering enough to kick Prime away from him, the two Kryptonians go punch for punch. Even with Primes enhanced power levels Superman shows him that it takes more than power to be “Super”and drops Prime. 

Though the battle is not without loss as Kal dies from the the beating.

My favorite moment from Infinite Crisis is by far both Supermen teaming up to take down Doomsday fairly easily. 

The conclusion to the 20 greatest Superman fights is coming next week!

Help Peter David

By, J. Ryan Buck (Lostscribe@gmail.com)

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