DC Just Admitted That Superman Is Their Most Frightening Hero

Nightwing has been one of the most exciting DC books of the last five years, and it’s only gotten better since Dan Watters and Dexter Soy took over the book. They’ve taken Bludhaven in new directions, introducing the Spheric Solutions, Circus of Sin, and multiple new gangs. The book’s last storyline brought back Nite-Mite, the Fifth Dimensional imp obsessed with Nightwing, and ended with one of the kids that Nightwing had saved from the gangs gaining the power of a Kryptonian called Nightwing-Prime, which plays into aspects of the Superman mythos that have always informed Nightwing’s origin (the name Nightwing actually comes from a Kryptonian legend). Nightwing #130 takes place in the aftermath of these events, with the hero trying to figure out what the Circus of Sin is bringing to his town. However, the existence of Nightwing-Prime brings the Justice League to the city, in an exchange that reveals just how terrifying Superman can be.

Nightwing-Prime is being built up as Nightwing’s partner, but there’s a problem. Nightwing-Prime is based on Van Zee, a protector of Kandor, but the actual person is Bryce Morgan, a young man who was in one of the gangs of Bludhaven. He lost basically everything in the wars between the gangs and Spheric Solutions, a company under the control of the Circus of Sin, and is a quite damaged young man. However, this is the exact last person that anyone would want to have the powers of Superman. The Justice League is rightfully scared of Nightwing-Prime, and it’s because of just how dangerous Kryptonian superpowers can be.

Superman’s Powers Made Him a Ticking Time Bomb

Think about Superman’s powers for a second. His Kryptonian physiology metabolizes yellow sunlight and gives him amazing powers. We look at Superman as the perfect person – a being who is constantly in control. Superman knows how to pull his punches when he’s taking down non-superpowered people, but that took him a lot of time to learn. As Clark Kent got older, his powers became greater, and he had to learn to keep from destroying everything around him and interact with the world around him over time.

We rarely get to see Superman go full power, but when we do, like in the Injustice Universe, it shows just how scary the Man of Steel can be. According to Superman’s recollection in Nightwing #130, it took a lot of time for him to learn how to control his own strength. He was lucky in that he had a normal upbringing and was a relatively well-adjusted person. Even with all of that, we’ve still seen Superman have to control himself when he’s around people, like in the Action Comics Superboy story where he confronted someone who almost burnt down Smallville High. He had to keep his anger from getting the better of him to make sure that he didn’t kill the perpetrator.

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Nightwing Just Created a New Kryptonian (And He’s Going to Remake the World)

Another great example of how dangerous a young, emotionally unstable Kryptonian can be is Superboy-Prime. When Superboy-Prime battled Superboy in Infinite Crisis #4, a group of heroes from the Teen Titans, the Justice Society, and the Doom Patrol showed up to help in the battle. Superboy-Prime, who had some experience in battling superhumans at this point, started killing heroes, punching through them and tearing limbs off, all while crying about how he didn’t mean to do any of it.

Superman is the hero that everyone turns to help battle the most powerful foes, but he doesn’t always deal with all-powerful bad guys. In those cases, he has to control himself perfectly to not destroy everything around him. It took time and training, as well as learning to control his emotions, so that he wouldn’t lose control of his near limitless strength. The Justice League usually trusts Nightwing’s judgment in things, but allowing an emotionally disturbed boy with the powers of Superman to run around Bludhaven is something that even they have to question, especially since Nightwing was given a way to take away Nightwing-Prime’s powers by Nite-Mite. However, Nightwing is able to convince them to allow them to trust him, and gets Nightwing-Prime to agree to be Nightwing’s new partner. Nightwing is moving beyond the Bat-Family, but he’s picking the most dangerous way to do it.

Superman Could Wipe Out the World by Just Not Being Careful

In recent years, we’ve had multiple pieces of superhero fiction that revolved around evil Superman-type characters, like Homelander and Omni-Man. They use their powers to be terribly violent things, as does the Injustice Superman, but none of us can imagine Superman doing anything like this. However, Nightwing #130 reveals just how frightening Superman can be and how easy it would be for him to lose control and kill everyone around him. That’s how powerful Superman is; he constantly has to keep himself under perfect control in order to keep from destroying the world he lives in.

DC has always portrayed Superman as the greatest hero of them all, a massively powerful man who uses his powers perfectly. He’s known for being the greatest of the metahuman community, but Superman is actually terrifying. At any time, he can burst any person he touches into chunky red paste. Superman is the scariest being in the DC Multiverse by a wide margin.

Nightwing #130 is on sale now.

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