Is he immune to psychic/mind attacks?

Or what's his resistance against it? Thanks.

If such thread exists please direct me and close this one.

@The_Entity_Who: are you talking about the new 52 if so in the new 52 its not been shown yet .pre falshpouint he was not immune just highly resistant

I think pre-flashpoint the Martian Manhunter placed psychic barriers on him to help shield against mind control, but not necessarily psychic attacks. As for New 52, I'm not sure. I haven't seen it touched upon yet

I think he knows some martial art that helps him combat psychics, I think it's called tourqasm-vo

@the_entity_who:

The pre-N52 had some mental defenses. Either by the use of the kryptonian arts of torquasm-rao and torquasm-vo, or techniques he later learned from the Martian Manhunter.

The N52 Superman has no natural defenses against psychics, if anything, this version has shown to be the most vulnerable.

Which is funny seeing that both through Superboy, H'el and even the early few stories from Krypton, all showed that kryptonians have immense psychic potential.

The main problem for Superman are the DC writers. They simply lack to ackowledge what's right in everyone's faces, that Superman has psionic powers. And although in the past I would agree that giving Superman psychic powers place both him and Martian Manhunter too close for taste, truth be told, MM power set is also very similar to those of Superman, too much in fact. So why DC writers continue to fail to see how much better Superman would become using his full potential, is beyond me.

Even more recently, during the conclusion of Doomed. With the help of a psychic powered Lois, Superman was able to steal from Brainiac all the minds he had stolen from Earth, and not only that, he was able to use that power with great ease. So much so, he used that power to create a black hole and pushed Brainiac planetsize ship inside it, together with both him and Brainiac, releasing at the last moment all those minds/psychic power back to their bodies. If this is not a show of Superman immense psychic potential, then I don't know what is.

Lets face it, Psionic powers would have been a much better, more useful addition to Superman power set, than a power called super-flare, that basicaly turns Superman into a walking bomb.

@heavenlydarkdragon: I hate the idea of Suoerman haveing psionic powers. I would be ok if they said that psiconic powers in Kryptonians are possible but just very very very rare and one in every one thousand had the gene.

@z3ro180:

I've been reading that a lot. The problem being no one gives me a good reason why not.

I find it funny that being maybe his biggest weakness a great number of fans are against psychic powers. And most talk about them like if it made no sense for Superman to have them, when in fact it would made perfect sense. Just look at his powers and how they work, there's a psionic element to every power he has.

In fact kryptonians should all have psychic powers to one extent or another. After all, aren't they supposed to be a race with incredible brain capacity, that they use mainly in scientific development. Even Jor-El had supposedly an 8th level mind. Which is very close to the standard in Brainiac planet of origin Colu. And they had psionics or at least the potential the ability to use it, if they trained their minds.

No... In Superman case the only thing that would make any sense at all was if DC came out and said once and for all, that Superman powers had actually a psionic element to them, but that it was mainly used in an almost subconscious way. And that if he trained his mind he would not only be able to use the powers he already has in a much more efficient way, but also that he could even expand his powers, if he did so.

This is just my opinion, by the way.

hes has defenses in place. such as the ones orions motherbox put in place.

@sodamyat:

Defenses that proved useless. Yes, a psychic could no longer find him or affect him at great distances, but at close range... That's another matter altogether.

Remember the Psi-Wars arc?! Orion motherbox defenses were like a knife in a gun fight. If not for Lois recently gained psionic powers he would've been psychic food for either the Psycho Pirate or the HIVE Queen.

Hes not immue to it, but he is highly resistant to it, its even theorized that his flight is due to telepathy in Science of Superman

During the psi war it was written his mind was overflowing with psi on if energy,that she tell you he has the potential,and if used correctly a way to defend himself ,mentally.

I wouldn't mind a updated version of what bryne Wrote How His POWERS worked,using ft he spiking energy in his brain as a way to control his physical powers.

BTW superboy powers could be explained very easy if this was in place.

New-52 Superman is very weak mentally.

I assume species like Kryptonians are essentially psionic beings shelled in material form, in a similiar way that I assume the Martian species is. But all kryptonian psionic power goes into their physical attributes, and building those up and making them as peak/invulnerable as possible. They're more 'conservative' in distribution. Bodies and limbs gives them leverage, etc. Fleshly fortification.

So I think that he's essentially got the psionics, but just no psionic... limbs.

My preference is that it's invulnerability vs intangibility style schtick. Martians, to use them as an example, are the most fluid selfless beings in the cosmos, so TK etc, isn't any different from what their normal shifty ways. Kryptonians however, are the most durable, rigid entities, who are so attached to their forms, their bodies are literally invulnerable, something I think (following this logic) that would apply to their minds as well. Psionic 'powers' in the offensive sense would be like ripping up their own brains to throw at people.

So, I think that it would be possible, but difficult and mostly self-defeating for kryptonians to have TK and that sort of thing, when they have perfectly good invulnerable super-strong bodies to fly around and use. And by the same token, their brains are a death-zone for any psychic trying to poke around.

Martians would be the Thief/Rogue class, and Kryptonians the warrior class, I think, by this definition; if that makes sense. Or water vs rock.

(I know that's a bit general, but the only thing I know about Superman's mental defenses specifically is that in old continuity, Maxima, Ms. Super Jean Grey, said he had strong resistance, and he tends to have blocks installed. My suggestion is that they would be as strong as an intelligent super-powerful hero who gets mind-controlled on a regular basis would make sure they were.)

I believe Orion put some defense in his brain to protect him from powerful telepaths!

In New-52 I remember only one occasion when Superman managed to get some upper hand against psionic user (albeit temporally) on his own – in AC#12 he emptied his mind and acted on instinct, which rendered Captain Comet’ telepathy useless against him.

@kenshima15:

I believe Orion put some defense in his brain to protect him from powerful telepaths!

Well, these defenses would be later proved to be no-good, big talk and nothing more. Psycho Pirate and HIVE Queen pretty much owned Supes, motherbox’ mental blocks or not.

@cgoodness:

You meant to say telekinesis not telepathy, right?

@supermudz:

I don't know about that theory of yours. It's interesting, I'll give you that. But it falls short in one specific fact. Under a red sun they're pretty much the same has any human.

If they were psionic beings shelled in material form, it would make sense that even on Krypton, kryptonians should have psychic abilities. They didn't need to be at the same level has Superboy, but at least they should have them. But they don't. Which again is kinda a contradiction in itself seeing that they're supposed to be this race with incredible minds. After all Jor-El was said to have an 8th level mind, and although I never undestood the mental measuring DC uses if a 12th level mind like that of Brainiac grants him all those psychic powers, then at least a 8th level and even lower like a 6th or 7th should also possess some natural psychic power.

I know DC still clings to that old notion of living solar batteries, but truth be told, it falls short to explain how Superman powers actually work, in a way we can believe even being a comic book character.

I've always defended the theory that kryptonians are the way the are mainly because of the geology of their planet. Not the gravity together with the type of star, but the geology together with the type of star. It's the only thing that makes sense, seeing that every living being that comes from that planet and is exposed to more powerful types of stars all develop great physical enhancements.

So to me it isn't that kryptonians are like the Martians, but that rather they're are the product of whatever happened that made Krypton so different and unique. In one story in a pre-N52 timeline it was said that kryptonians were not the first intelligent beings that lived on Krypton, that there were legends of an old race of beings made of pure energy, that for some reason left Krypton. On another pre-N52 timeline it was said that before there were kryptonians there was a race of superpowered beings, with godlike powers; in time that race split in two and fought amoungst themselves, until one side won, the one that was commanded by the greatest warrior of them all, Rao. And that after a time the race split again this time in three. Rao and most of his followers ventured to other planes of existance, while others decided to venture through the universe to find new worlds where they could start again. And the third kind, that had initially been created to be a kind of lower class of servents to the higher class, those were left to their own destiny, and those became the known kryptonian race.

All these stories are quite old, so I don't even take them serious anymore. But it does raises the question, was Krypton a product of chance or was it made that way, to serve some higher purpose. And by this I mean, in terms of credibility for everything kryptonians can do, what would make more sense. Chance or Intentional.

It's is clear that kryptonian powers have some psionic element to them. The way they use their powers, the level of control, even the changes that occures when their minds are altered, it all implies those powers have a psionic element. But that doesn't mean that they're natural psionic beings. At most it shows that their bodies somehow can take even a small amount of specific sunlight types absorving it, hypermetabolizing it, which generates immense amounts of energy, that in turn enhances both their physical and mental atributes. And it's that enhancement that actually gives them their powers.

Some call it comic book science or in other words "It is has it is, because people write it to be so", others defend the photonucleic effect and even different more updated versions of it, others (like me) believe that it's some kind of natural bio-superconductivity that opperates at a subatomic level.

Either way, no one is right or wrong in this matter, seeing that they all make more sense than what DC still defends. Even your theory is way more likely to be true than the old gravity plus red star thing.

Thanks for sharing it, by the way. I don't totally agree with it, but it does have some potential. Who knows. Maybe within race that gave birth to the Martians, there was more than one kind, and when the Oans used their powers to bind the Burning turning them into the Martians, they had to do the same to maybe another race or the same race but of a different type and by binding them in physical bodies, has fire became the Martians weakness, Kryptonian weakness became the red suns. Who knows....

@heavenlydarkdragon:

"If they were psionic beings shelled in material form, it would make sense that even on Krypton, kryptonians should have psychic abilities."

I don't think it would matter what kind of absorption they got. In my example, they wouldn't have psychic abilities when they're super-powered, because that's what their bodies are for. Even if they're only getting 1% energy from the red sun, it's going into, I dunno, anti-gravity, or breathing, or whatever they use it for. That's how their bodies are designed to use the energy.

A little like oxygen. You need it to live and grow and exert yourself, but just breathing twice the oxygen won't make you grow new limbs.

I think it's possible for Kryptonians to develop in arbitrary directions with their psionic powers, but they're biologically hyper-conservative; they can't just do it on a whim, they would have to train it, somehow.

X

I probably didn't explain the concept very well. When I say they're psionic beings, what I mean is that that's their heritage,it's the background for why they are the way they are, not that it's something they're particularly conscious of, or that they can ditch their body and possess people or anything. I didn't mean 'attached' in just the psychological sense.

Without their bodies they'd probably just be phantoms, because they're not designed to operate without their bodies. Maybe the race originates from the phantom dimension, and their cosmic daddies gave them bodies in which to rule the cosmos. Who knows. To me, Kryptonians are in a sense demi-gods. They're made up of two natures, one material and one supernatural/psionic. And it's why they have no theoretical upper limits, and go around farting in the face of reality.

Basically along the lines of what you said, I think. I actually like the idea of Rao being a legendary hyper-warrior. I'll have to find those issues.

(I only used the Martians as an analogy for the dynamic of invulnerable vs intangible. Personally, Kryptonians >>>>>> Martians. I think of Kryptonians as being the equivalent of cosmic Tolkien elves. They were the first People, they were top dog, but they kind of peaked out and got bored with their utter supremacy (or civil war or whatever), and sat around on Krypton waiting to die. Martians are a 'younger race'. Mid-tier.)

The material effects on the body matter (power absorption, physiology), because they are basically a piece of technology that operates according to genetics/design. Gravity and red sun, genetics, and all those things, still matter in whatever way they ordinarily do (and I suspect/posit the Red Sun effect is really just a physiological power-save effect). I actually think Superman flies by an innate (super-powered) space-warp anti-gravity ability, which the Kryptonians developed to compensate for a super-heavy-g world, but that's just a thought. That could still be psionic, I suppose.

It's why I specifically contrast Martians and Kryptonians. For Martians, their bodies don't really seem to matter (other than being responsive to their psychic manipulation, presumably); but for Kryptonians it's the opposite, they're completely married to their bodies, their bodies are just as important to them as ours is to us; they're basically stuck there the way it is (barring mad science). It's not a shell in the sense of just being for appearances, but just that it's the species of body Kryptonians developed or was granted as their external manifestation in the material realm. Psionics would be like what they fuel it with.

I do prefer thinking of them as just super-peak-mortals/human with fantastic powers and miracle blood. Bursting with innate psionic energy that fuels them and what-not. But my idea is just the potential science or history behind that. Superman is basically Space Heracles. He is a man in the way that it matters, not an amorphous energy being from Galvertron XII. But he's also some kind of personification of limitless human potential being realised, and psionics kind of helps explain that in a 'comic sciencey' way.

I know DC still clings to that old notion of living solar batteries

I never liked that theory. It just makes Superman an optical router, instead of a Herculean uber-dude. Not strong enough? Just take a bath in the magic fountain! Leaves no credit for Supes.

Either way, no one is right or wrong in this matter, seeing that they all make more sense than what DC still defends.

If you're worried about offending me by disagreeing, save yourself the trouble. It's almost impossible to do. I actually enjoy arguing. Only the forum rules stand between me and being a confrontational deluxe, if we're being honest. No swearing? What's up with that?

"Thanks for sharing it, by the way. I don't totally agree with it, but it does have some potential."

Sure thing, bud. And thanks. It's all just speculation of course, but I've been penning Superman scripts in my spare time, so I'm keen to poke around on a Supes forum for a bit and have the chat. Supes is my fav'rite.

@sanohibiki:

This was after Hive Queen and P.Pirate though...he didnt have the defense during his fight with them.

Orion put those in after the fight with them when Hammond tries possessing his mind!

@kenshima15 said:

?.. Orion installed these mental “defences” (meh) in Clark’s mind in the end of Superman #20 – then in Superman #22 HIVE Quenn was kicking Supes’ …ss with telepathic attacks.

@supermudz:

Well either way, it's an interesting idea, if nothing else. I pretty much doubt DC Comics writers reads any of this stuff anyway. If they did, maybe the comics would be in better "place".

Either way, if your interested in the story of Rao has you so well put it, has an hyper-warrior, than you should read 'Superman The Last God Of Krypton'. That's where you'll find that story.

I'm not worried about offending anyone. I only try not to do it on purpose. After all if I "said" half the things that go through my mind when I read the craziest of sh*ts, then I would've been kicked out of comic vine, along time a go. You know has well has I know there's just some people you can't have a useful, meaning, debate with. Because some people cling to their ideas so tightly that if you say anything that goes against them in any way, they start acting like little punks. All a person wants to say is "Chill out man. You'll pop a vein or something." but that generaly speaking only makes things worst. Silence is usually the best way to go.

Thanks for the extra info. It did helped me undersand your point a lot better.

@heavenlydarkdragon:

Hah! That's cool. Thanks for the ref.

Heavenly dark dragon and supermudz I would like to read your explanation of superboy a powers,and if either of you have a better way "to do" his powers?

I don't know much about Connor in the comics, but I think my reasoning would work pretty well from the little I know.

(Just based on YJ cartoon.)

Aside from genetic mistakes or mutations or whathaveyou, Connor could simply be developing in a different direction. That's why his invulnerability and strength is or might be low compared to Supes, and/or he's missing abilities; because that energy is going somewhere else. (So he's like a X-Men style mutant.)

I mean, we can chalk it up to him just being crippled, like being born without arms; but if we want to give Connor special powers (or he has them), here's a reason. It's kind of interesting to think that no matter what genetics a kryptonian offspring gets, he can 'fill it out', and develop full level super-powers; just not necessarily the same ones as ordinary kryptonians might have. A genetic 'fresh start', partially.

Superman might have the powers he has simply because those were the abilities of the superhero he subconsciously saw himself becoming, or wanted to be. (But more likely it's just the default of his genetics.)

Back in the SA, from what I'm told, he definitely seemed to just develop powers just according to inspiration. If he really needed a power, he would reach down in himself and make it happen, and pull it out through his butt, if needed.

Perhaps it's a combination of inspiration, willpower and psychology (as to his direction of development). So besides being genetically different, Connor could develop differently simply because he's a different person. He was born in a vat, not raised by Kents.

Well Superman was just taken over ... again. This time by Circe. I guess I can give this one a pass since it was through magic, though it does look like Superman and Wonder Woman will be facing each other. Superman/Wonder Woman #16.

@heavenlydarkdragon: Agree with your idea of psionic/psychokinetic ability to explain how mainstream Kryptonian powers work. I say mainstream because alternate Earth Supermen have psionic, psychokinetic, magic explanations to their abilities.....like the Harvey Dent Superman from Tangent Comics. So if those are acceptable to other Earth's why not the main Superman?

I think one of the things that hurts the powers explanation for Superman is when you compare him to similar feat characters like Goku and Japanese anime, which has made huge popularity strides in the past 20-30 years in the West and influenced modern American comics to a great extent.

Now I'm not saying make Superman a Saiyan/Super Saiyan. His powerset is fine on its own. What I'm saying is that writers for decades have clearly given Kryptonian the psychokinetic ability to manipulate solar radiation but have limited that explanation to primarily subconscious enhancement with a little conscious use (flight and vision abilities). That was fine when Superman was a sole survivor but when comparing Kryptonians its always mentioned how Superman simply has "greater control" of his abilities than the others. What does that really mean though? He's clearly not as physically strong as a guy like Non, he shouldn't really even match a non-powered Zod whose had years of combat training and maintaining a peak physical regiment. The modern Supergirl has been shown to be faster at both running and flying, which makes practical sense given her lighter body wouldn't be hampered by her cousins more bulky frame (particularly as a runner).

So where then does this "greater control" come into play? Mainly flight and vision abilities, which are the least of Supes' worries when he's in a drag out fight. Yet if it were changed that he adjusts his strength, speed and durability to meet the threat by expending more of the solar energy in his cells to fuel muscle, bone and tissue enhancement than the fact that he could topple a physically superior opponent like Non becomes far more plausible despite their separation in martial skill because Supes knows how to maximize the use of his solar energy.

This also makes greater sense that Superman is not always operating at his maximum ability. His enhancements are consciously derived (though I wouldn't be opposed to writers saying there is a subconscious aspect for his survival, say he gets knocked out in space his body works to maintain a high enough level to survive till his oxygen or energy supply runs out) and thus he can interact more freely with the world as Clark Kent than "living in a world made of cardboard" (to quote the great scene against Darkseid in the JLU series finale). That's not to say make a non-enhanced Superman be equal to a normal human......by sheer planetary environment and evolution a Kryptonian should naturally be around 3-5, but no greater than 10, times stronger than a normal human even in a red sun environment. That's just the nature of being an older, more evolved race while still making red solar radiation a threat to Superman as he still couldn't deal with the threats he normally does with powers. It just means better writing than "put him in a red solar panel room and thus any normal soldier can restrain him".

Just my 2 cents

during the Psi War storyline Orion turned up, and ended up using a mother box to put psychic barriers is superman's mind.

This is also why he was not mind raped by brainiac (only other person who could resist it was MMH)

@ltbrd:

And your 2 cents are greatly appreciated.

To me DC showed without a shadow of a doubt that Superman and has such others kryptonians, abilities/enhacements/powers have a psychic/psionic element to them, mostly in the post-FinalCrisis and pre-N52 period. When Kal/Clark for a whole year was depowered after he and Kal-L (Superman from a previous Earth-2) were forced to drive Superboy-Prime into the red star Rao to remove his powers. True that all three lost their powers, but Kal/Clark went an entire year without his powers, even though all the best minds of the of JLA and JSA tested his dna and everything they could and found nothing wrong, they even exposed him to a highly concentrated dose of simulated yellow sunlight, and even then his powers remained innactive. Only after a year of living depowered and only when his life was in danger due to the contract hit on Clark Kent, did his powers started to return. He then theorized that the reason his powers were innactive was because he himself, had been depressed and tired of all the fighting and death, he had subconsciously blocked his own powers. And that proved to be true, because it was only when Jimmy's life was in danger that his powers not only fully returned, but also they were increased.

Now. This showed us two things without a doubt.

First, that his powers have a psionic element to them; after all what else could explain their "disappearance" and subtle "appearance" when he needed them the most. It's like some cases of traumatized people that I've seen during some documentaries, where people that were so deeply psychologically "damaged" that all matter of unexplained things happened to them. There are cases where people lost their ability to see, ear, speak, move a certain member, all losses that had no physical explanation, because their bodies are fine, but the mind was not and has such had created "blocks" that actually interfered with undamaged parts of the body. For Superman it was like that. He said it so himself. That after all those events he was simply tired of everything and wished for nothing more than a "normal" life.

Second. It has been shown in many comics that when Superman state of mind is altered, that his powers can actually increase or decrease. For example, when he was training in the Block to try to determine how fsr his powers went, he was able to train in a machine that simulated the entire mass of the planet for five straight days, but when the JL was fighting to stop the forces of Atlantis and Aquaman brother used his magical scepter to bring down lightning on the JL, both he and his teammates where knocked unconscious. That alone is very strange because no one can tell me that lightning that wasn't even powerful enough to kill Batman (the most vulnerable of them all) was strong enough to knockout Superman. They weren't hit by magic, the lightnings were natural forces of nature, the scepter only allowed someone to conjure and control them, and still Superman fell like any other. And not only this example... In some ways it's like if Superman isn't really focused on what he's doing or if he's caught off guard it's like his body, because he has the need to hold back and not apply all his power for everyone's safety, he actually mentally lowers his powers, and by such his own defenses.

So seeing the "weight" the mind has on kryptonian powers, I think in my honest opinion that it's due time for DC Comics to update their explanation for kryptonian powers. Because let's face it, he doesn't fly because he has an anti-gravity organ, that's not only more ridiculous than saying he's a living solar battery but makes no sense whatsoever. If we humans had an anti-gravity organ, than it would only allow us to float around, we wouldn't actually fly we would float around like balloons. No red star plus higher gravity would explain such levels of physical prowess and much less the ability to so finely tune into specific energy frequencies and project those same energies through his eyes or any other part of the body. No manner of gravity diference whatsoever. Not the one in Birthright were they said Earth gravity was only 0.03% that of Earth, which would imply that on Krypton gravity was 33X bigger that ours; and much alone now in the New 52 were it was said that Earth had 0.2% the gravity of Earth, or 5X our gravity.

I understood why they lowered it from 33X to only 5X. You see recent years of research of other solar systems showed that apparently solid planets like Earth and that of comic book Krypton, have a limit in size around 10 to 15 times the size of our own. More than that and any solid planet breaks appart, because the pressure in the core is just too great; and even on planets 5 to 15 times the size of ours life is anything but easy. Climate is much more harsh and geological events have a much greater impact and can cause devastation in levels that we can hardly grasp. How do they reached that number? Supercomputers virtual models of our own planet, were they did an increase in size/mass showed that has the planet mass increases so it becomes more harsh and ultimately more unstable.

All this info for what exactly, you may ask. Just to show that the Krypton of all the pre-N52 timelines could never have existed, with such gravity. And second, if gravity is out of the picture, what caused a planet to have such exotic (unique) elements to it has to have a better explanation. And believe me, there are better explanations out there, just ask any planetary science expert with an open mind and he'll tell you of the multitude of things that can happen, shape and alter a planet in ways we can hardly imagine. Even our own planet, if any of those things happened now, here on our planet, it would kill all current life, but at the same time it would lay the ground work for new and completely different species to arrise and evolve. Species that could far surpass anything that has ever existed so far or... make it so that no other organic life ever existed again here on Earth, in the worst case scenario.

I wish they would update how superman's powers work and how he gets them in the first place.

Then superboys powers could be explained better,those from the YJ show to kesels,to geoffs,to lobdells,and beyond.

@bobthened: Lois was also able to resist for a while. And Wonder Woman wasn't affected at all.

@bobthened said:

Pretty sure it was said in Doomed that Lois after been freed from Brainiac’s control spent a part of her psionic power to protect Supes’ mind.

@sanohibiki:

@kenshima15 said:

I believe Orion put some defense in his brain to protect him from powerful telepaths!

@heavenlydarkdragon: Honestly, that sounds like a terrible idea. Why not just give him standard energy manipulation? Or shapeshifting? Or magic? Superman works just fine punching things and occasionally using freeze breath and heat vision. I enjoy when he comes up with interesting ways to utilize his frankly rather limited power set. Like in New 52 when he used freeze breath and heat vision concurrently to create a thermal updraft want safely deposit civilians miles away from a fight. I wouldn't be opposed to him learning to fight on the astral plane and separate his consciousness from his body like doctor strange, but if he does get TP or TK it should only be a momentary power up from a different type of star. For instance, I was under the assumption that Superboy's powers worked like that only because he's not fully kryptonian and H'el specifically mentions soaking up the radiation of all types of stars like blue ones and white ones and even "raging quasars".

Additionally, I think SuperMudz theory could work. For example, we know kryptonians process solar energy to maintain their powers and that while doing so they don't need to eat or drink or breathe or sleep. What if they're basically like pandas. Pandas eat a lot of bamboo but they're still mostly carnivorous. They adapted over the millennia to process bamboo for food stuffs because of their environment. They can't gain a lot of energy from it, but they still gain energy none the less. What if that's what red sun radiation is too them. They can still process it, but because it's not the optimal source of energy for them, they still require other things to draw energy from, like food, and because of that, they have very little energy to utilize their power. You can also see how it could be their weaknesses by comparing them to the panda yet again. While they still might be able to process it, red sun radiation works against them more than it benefits them, and kryptonian are passive energy absorbers instead of active ones. Other forms of solar radiation could just be more suited to their mortal shells biology and they can sustain themselves on that alone, allowing them to utilize their powers in full.

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Seems to me like plenty of hints have been dropped regarding Superman's mental capacity if these scans are anything to go by.