Every once in a while, a superhero gets mind controlled by a villain. Turning against other heroes. So tell me, why is it that Superman gets mind controlled the most? I get that he's Superman, but this is ridiculous. I also read the he developed some form of telepathy. Why can he use that for when this happens. Again.

Yeah the Superman turns evil/mind-controlled is getting real old. What's this about telepathy though?

Writers not being able to think of anything original for one. Superman's had mental blocks and gadgets to keep him safe from psychic attacks but those are ignored, Supes has been noted to be full of psychic potential but it hasn't been exploited that much.

Pre-Flashpoint, Superman was a practitioner of Torquasm-Vo, a sort of Kryptonian mental martial art. Through training, he could access his own astral plane, and was used as an in-universe explanation for his ability to build up psychic blocks and fight off telepathic assaults. While not actually telepathy, this is probably what you're talking about.

Whether the Torquasm-Vo martial art still exists Post-Flashpoint or not, nobody knows. However, through the example of H'el and comments by both Lex Luthor and Psycho Pirate, Superman is "bursting" with untapped/unused psionic energies (if H'el is model to go by, Superman would likely need exposure to multiple cosmic radiations, blue suns, black holes, pulsars, etc. to access his full potential).

Either way you look at it, Superman has always had either the ability or the potential to fend off psychic attacks, it's just that in recent times, the case is the latter.

I don’t remember when exactly was said that Superman developed telepathy (of course, if we not counting SA stuff); all I remember that there are multiple hints about Kryptonians having psionic potential, but it seldom executed.

About protection against mind-control – Reactor told already about Torquasm-Vo. I might add that in Pre-Mew-52 Superman had some lessons from Martian Menhunter how to protect his mind from mental attacks. Supes used this knowledge to successfully resist mind-controlling spell on one occasion.

Cause he's the toughest out of the group, just plot.

If telepathy(in comics) is all energy going from one person to another for different reasons,shouldn't superman be able to effect this in different ways,because of his ability to use the EM field in all ways?

The new 52 superboy can use telepathy in some levels,and his powers are just a more outwardly controllable version of what superman has,atleast IMO.

If you're gonna control someone for evil purposes, it might as well be the strongest around. It does get a little old though, but seriously, telepathy? Is there anything Superman can't do?

Look at all the 'evil' Superman/ Superman being controlled stories, and you'll see the reason has more to do with Batman than Superman, namely that Batman gets to be the hero even over the most righteous and powerful Leaguer.

Writers never come to common ground when it comes to Superman mental powers.

It's completely logic that Superman should have psionic powers. Most recently when he fought against Psycho Pirate, he said that Supes had the most powerful mind on Earth, full of psychic power, shining like a star. We even seen on Action Comics, that he has immense mental potencial, when he in seconds processed the information of dozens of worldwide optical and radio telescopes, to form a image of the moment when Krypton exploded. It was said that all of Earth computers working together would have taken years to process that amount of information, and supes did it in seconds.

Sometimes its said that only the most powerful telepaths can influence Superman, but then comes a long a regular telepath and he can also manipulate supes to some extent.

It seems that writers are afraid of making Superman too powerful, but when it comes to villans like H'el, that also was a kryptonian, there was no problem doing it. And their excuse, was simply that H'el had been exposed to more powerful classes of stars.

Looking at how Superman physiology seems to work, all aspects of his physical abilities should be amplified, including what his mind can do. And to make it even more irritating some writers hint that he does have psychic powers, but he just doesn't know how to use them, or he never explored that side of his power.

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That mental martial art borders on full blown Telepathy as far as I'm concerned. It not only lets you protect your own mind but you have the option of mentally attacking others as well...How is that not basically the telepath version of a mind rape? You can mind control someone if you win or at the very least cast illusions and also have an astral version of yourself fly around seperate from your physical body. If anything that's a huge overlooked Advantage for Superman. It's pretty much the writers way of bringing back Supes more golden age abilities like "Super hypnosis" if not his full blown telepathy showings from those old times in comics. If those abilities don't scream "Super hypnotism" if not "mind dominating telepathy" then I don't know what does. Because that's pretty much what it is. People see it as nothing more then a mental self defense. But that's only half true. You can use it to counter attack. If you don't have the skill at all then The real practitioner wins by default and mind rapes you. So supe's essentially can mentally dominate people. Not on the same scale as Professor X but at the very least the same concept and at least on one person at a time (I'm going off of the assumption of if it were used on an average Joe though. Not a real telepath like Charles). When "Kem-El" AKA the Eradicator said he was gonna use what he called the "mind control method" of torquasm-Vo....So that right there already tells us it can be used to control others minds. I'm pretty sure Eradicator intended on using it to brainwash Superman into being a "true kryptonian". https://issuu.com/planetejoabn/docs/elseworlds_-_superman_-_king_of_the

https://books.google.com/books?id=Oq_s-Rfy4CEC&pg=PT189&lpg=PT189&dq=dominus+superman+torquasm&source=bl&ots=LP4du27vhw&sig=0PTvtA0XybRW0fdv1WYf88v3bw0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiu7fOpuanXAhUD12MKHVNdDccQ6AEIRTAL#v=onepage&q=dominus%20superman%20torquasm&f=false

In the fight Superman had against Lobo(when Lobo got hired to take him out, and had a camera man along), Superman used some kind of psi-enhancer headband to enhance his own, extremely minimal, telepathy to the point where it was actually useful, and he used it to win the fight.

I can't remember the details 'cos it's been ages since I read that particular comic, but maybe someone can expand on it.

@sirmethos: Ok now that sounds interesting. Can you tell me what issue this was from? Or at least if it looked like an old 90s era comic or a more modern up to date one?

@segamarvel: Found the issue on dc.wikia.

http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Adventures_of_Superman_Vol_1_464

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@sirmethos: From what I read Superman was telepthically remote controlling a Kryptonian battle suit.

@segamarvel: Yup. The keyword for the purpose of this thread, being "telepathically".