What makes a Superman super?

Weaknesses. That is what makes superheroes super. It's not their powers, or attitude or costume, heck Superman went entire stories out of costume. It is their flaws. Their weakness makes them like us. We cannot bend steel with our bear hands, stop bullets with our chest or super speed, change the course of mighty...well you get it. It is their weakness that is attractive. Superman at his creation was just that, a super man, not the godlike creature he has become. His powers were leaping not flying, running faster than a train, not so fast as to run around the earth in minutes. He could stop bullets but howitzer shells injured him. Needles could not pierce his flesh but you knew there might be something that could. He was more Hercules and less Universe Man (Listen to They might be giants "Particle Man").


Several writers have tried to explain this away with the heavy Krypton gravity vs Earth gravity, yellow sun/red sun stories and even his creators had to come up with bigger and better heroics to fill three comics a month only two years after his introduction. And so Superman slowly became Perfect Man, unable to be harmed, a really really nice guy who always does the right things for the right reasons. Several other writers have tried to take some of that away over the years, to try and reach back to the more innocent time, but the need to fill pages with better stories and art overpowers even a super man.