Did Superman learn his abilities?

I've never read any comics and I am quite confused about superman. Im writing this to get informed about superman ; so please help. i kinda know there is something like a new 52 superman, and pre crisis, and things like that. When people say those things I get confused. Is superman a character who learned new powers and abilities as he grew older? Or was he simply just given new powers/abilities from different writers? Are there multiple types of supermen?

As in, pre crisis superman and 52 superman, are they the same person with completely different life stories/events/abilities???

Please Inform the uninformed !!!

Thank you for your time.

@goldenoozaru22: You want to get informed. Read a comic.

@goldenoozaru22: dude, what you need to do is wikipedia, when i first got into superman i didnt even read books, i read probably like one hundred thousand wiki pages:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman
• http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Superman

Read those 2 first, then read these as well:

• http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Superman_(Clark_Kent)
• http://superman.wikia.com/wiki/Superman
• http://www.comicvine.com/superman/4005-1807/

I will very much help you understand continuty.

those names signify different continuities Pre-crisis means before the crossover epic Crisis on Infinite Earths, and afterward the continuity was rebooted. New52 was a recent reboot from 2011 that is the current running Superman and writers have given him varying levels of strength.

@allstarsuperman:

Thank you for your input, but doing all that reading was something I did not want to do lol. That's why I asked the question on this site to get direct answers since I know many people on this site are very knowledgable on superman which would save me hours of reading lol.

So in each continuity he has different powers? Are the different continuities connected?

I looked it up but I'm still having trouble understanding that part...

Here is a question that could help me out;

how was superman able to leap an 1/8 of a mile, and then all of a sudden start flying... How did that happen? Did the writers just give him the power, or did he have to learn the ability himself as he grew older? Do you see where I'm gettin at?

I just want to know if superman trained to learn these abilities ? Or was he able to just do them because the writers said he has the ability to do so...

@goldenoozaru22:

Golden age/Earth 2:

Was the one who jumped, he later got flight just from being under the sun. It just took that version longer then normal to get all his powers. (he also started getting "overpowered" towards the end)

Silver age/Earth 1:

Was the one with hilariously overpowered everything. he had rainbow rays, cloning powers, telepathy, and strength to pull 11+ worlds.

Bronze Age/Earth 1:

Is the same as Silver Age in continuity, but he wasn't as extreme. He had planet level strength, but he lost all his silly powers.

Crisis on Infinite Earths:

COIE was a big crossover, the golden age and silver/bronze age characters teamed up to stop the AntiMoniter, history gets rewritten and rebooted in the Modern Age.

Modern Age/New World:

After being rebooted Superman was very depower for a while. He could still lift Cruise liners and punch people to space. But he didn't have planet level strength anymore.

Zero Hour:

Is another half reboot, but not really, type thing. It is in the same continuity as Modern Age/New World. I would refer to this as "Pre-Flashpoint."

Flashpoint:

Barry Allen/Flash rewrites time, and when he tries to change it back, history gets rewritten into the new 52.

New 52/Current Age:

Superman has planet level strength, but doesn't have a lot of durability. Instead of only getting powers under the yellow sun, he is a radiation sponge and can get many powers, if he does absorb different kinds of radiation like H'el.

Hope this helps some. But you should at least look at this disambiguation page:

http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Superman

It will help to tell all the different versions apart.

@allstarsuperman:

That's what I needed!

Thank you again allstar!

@goldenoozaru22: no problem

@goldenoozaru22: The thing is, DC has a lot of retcons. A retcon is a term to describe something that writers do to change the past or current conditions of a comic or character. For example, Crisis on Infinite Earths was a retcon that destroyed almost all of the dimensions in the DC universe. Here's a link that goes to a fan-made page that describes the retcons and what they represent in easy-to-understand fashion.

http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/DC_Database:Retcon_Roulette