Over his nearly 90-year comic book history, Superman has had countless powers. There are the big ones that fans know and readily identify with the hero: his incredibly strength, skin that’s impervious to damage, the ability to fly, and his speed. But while those are the classic Superman powers, the iconic hero has had plenty of other ones particularly during the Golden and Silver Ages of comics. Those years saw all of the heroes in comics have some pretty out there skills, and Superman was no exception, exhibiting everything from mind control powers to telepathic powers and time travel skills, too. However, there’s one power set Superman used to have that might just be the weirdest of them all — and it’s a doozy.
To find this absolutely bonkers power set, we have to go all the way back to Superman Vol. 1 #125 with a cover date of November 1958. The issue wastes no time giving readers an exciting preview of what they’re going to experience with this issue; Superman’s weird new power (or at least part of it) is right on the cover, which features the Man of Steel shooting rainbow blasts out of his fingertips. Yes, you read that right. Superman developed rainbow blasts. But trust us… this isn’t just an aesthetic power or the only one he ends up with in this issue.
In Superman #125, the hero encounters an alien ship but after the encounter he discovers something unsettling: all of his powers, save for flight and invulnerability are just gone. Instead, Superman is left with the strange rainbow blast power that beyond just being kind of cool looking on the page, actually do something. It turns out that the blasts just prompt criminals to give up and surrender. Yes, just that easily. Out comes the rainbows (though on the actual pages of the comic, they aren’t exactly that colorful) and criminals don’t stand a chance. This seems like a pretty neat, and useful, little gimmicky power, but the story takes things to an even weirder extreme because rainbows aren’t the only thing that Superman can shoot out of his hands.
superman #125, dc comics
The issue also reveals that there is another new power that Superman has in terms of things that he can propel from his hand and this one is kind of nightmare fuel: a mini version of himself. Superman finds that he can shoot this tiny version of himself right out of his hand and, bonus, this mini-Supes — formally called the Proxy — has all of Superman’s original powers that he lost when he came into contact with that weird alien ship. I promise you; we are not making this up. It is literally on the pages of the comic and bystanders think the Proxy is pretty cute… something that Superman isn’t exactly thrilled about. In fact, Superman isn’t thrilled about his new little mini-me at all, especially as the Proxy’s profile as a hero begins to rise.
Fortunately for Superman, he doesn’t have to play second fiddle to his miniature self for long but how he deals with the Proxy is frankly not very Superman-like. Realizing that he controls the Proxy, when a kryptonite meteor show threatens Metropolis, Superman just directs the Proxy to deal with it “and if the kryptonite should destroy him — well, that’s his tough luck!” When villains collect some of the kryptonite and intend to use it against Superman, the Proxy instead battles it away from him, disappearing in the process. Superman gets his powers back, sparing only a fleeting thought that maybe the Proxy had a life of his own.
A Superman annoyed to not be getting the credit for his heroics and being almost cavalier about sacrificing a potentially sentient being in order to regain his own powers seems like a bit shift for the hero we know today, but the Silver Age (when this comic was technically published) was a very different time. Of course, this somewhat darker take on Superman isn’t even the weirdest story in Superman #125 — that might actually belong to “Lois Lane’s Super-Dream” with Lois imagining she got powers from Superman’s blood. But that’s for another day.
Do you think this is Superman’s weirdest ever power? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section!
Over his nearly 90-year comic book history, Superman has had countless powers. There are the big ones that fans know and readily identify with the hero: his incredibly strength, skin that’s impervious to damage, the ability to fly, and his speed. But while those are the classic Superman powers, the iconic hero has had plenty Read More