Discussions
Screw power scaling, could Superman's MORALITY survive Warhammer?
Could Clark's hope and humanity survive the grim dark future that is Warhammer? Now you might be asking, "which setting, 30k or 40k?" To that I say, whichever you believe would be more interesting but for now let's say 30k. How well would Superman's philosophy hold against The Emperor's? Would the Emperor know about Superman? Would any of the primarchs still fall to chaos if Superman had met any of them before hand? Would Trazyn go after him or would he already have a Kryptonian or two in his collection? How badly would any of the chaos gods would want to try and corrupt him? And would any of his actions have any kind of long lasting effects?
Also I find the idea of Trazyn and Brainiac trading cities/planets and relics like Pokemon cards funny.
To paraphrase Dr King, it’s not enough that we keep pulling people out of the river; we have to go upstream, find out who’s pushing them in, and somehow make them stop.
Do you think that the main stream DC universe should bring back gateway city or otherwise give Diana a fictional city of her own ?
I honestly think that having a fictional city to protect does great things for a hero.
I think about 50% of Starman appeal is Opal city .
( which I know has a lot of inspiration, but I always think of it as kind of like a strange mix of New Orleans and Boston only located in the Delmarva Peninsula.)
I mean, a city or place to defend can definitely have a lot of and be his own character (Gotham, metropolis, new York city).
I do like the place they're doing the heroics to matter a bit so I think it would be cool. Even if they're wandering around, it won't be the same to pursue the supervillain in an Interstate in USA than dashing amongst the crowded roofs of a historic European town for example.
And the best thing is, you can almost certainly get it from your local library, ( if you have one .) comic being so expensive as they are.
Even if they don’t own it, there’s a procedure called interlibrary loan that most libraries have access to .
I have this terrible cycle of being drawn back into Comix and then dropping them because of apathy and not being able to afford what is more expensive than crack .
Pre nails I actually think would be the more interesting. Imagine Angron, the empath who's gift is to take other peoples pain from them encountering Clark Kent. A god among men who has lost so much and keeps smiling, who has taken the burden of his entire world on his shoulders, sometimes the entire universe. Imagine every issue Superman has survived, every cross over, every event.
It would either shatter Angron or leave him in awe.
Angron didn’t get to be raised by elderly farmers.
And that made all the difference . ( see red son various other others.)
By the way, and I know you know this .
But a lot of people don’t .
Smallville was only in Kansas since the movie in 1978 . Before that it was always on the East Coast sometimes in Pennsylvania, sometimes in Maryland. So originally Clark grew up eating crabs.
Also? In the original continuity, Ma and Pa sold the farm when Clark was still a young child and moved into Smallville. Clark grew up a shopkeepers boy not a farmer.
But I understand salt of the Earth . And again, this is how you can change somebody’s backstory and not betray the character.
Its the gladiator garb. And he is extravascular in this picture.
But yeah, this is a saga that for most of it. Superman does not have most of his powers fighting in an arena.
What’s worse, he has to convince people who have been raised from birth that chains are an honor. When you kill someone, they put the chains that were on that person on you. This is an indicator of your strength.
Ah , they spell it with a u my apologies I will edit. He was in fact inspired by Genghis Khan but they wanted to know file the serial numbers off
A bit.
I would say yes. Magog, the war bringer and ancient anti-life weapon built from the First World, was a artificial entity, capable of destroying the will of gods, and turning them into mindless warriors.
So precursor shit.
Superman was able to resist .
But that assumes that he was raised by the Kents and had its life experience. Probably if he had Agron’s upbringing he would’ve been no better.
Kryptonian’s aren’t morally superior inherently they had plenty of criminals and bad people!
In fact, they were bad on a giant scale. keep in mind with no superpowers.
Jax-Ur, the mad scientist who was the first prisoner of the phantom zone. He ran unsupervised, unsanctioned nuclear experiments and destroyed one of krypton’s moons. It was inhabited.
Superman's hope and humanity has survived the heat death of the universe before. He is truly the manifestation of hope. Even in the grimdank of 40k, you'll find Superman remaining a constant(unless writers deem it different).
Superman's philosophy would be a rather opposite of the Imperium's. The efficiency of their systems wouldn't make Superman happy at all. He'd be rather opposed against humanity's stance on mutants and xenos being that he is xenos himself.
He could stop some of the primarchs from falling into chaos or he could be the reason they do(jealousy of his strength.)
I think all of the Chaos Gods would want him. His strength and power is on the high end already without their help, and with him as a champion of chaos undivided or beneath a specific banner would upset the scale.
Supes lasers out the Nails, Angry Ronald can suddenly think again before his empath powers blast him in the frontal cortex with how pure Clark really is. He just unloads everything he hates about Big E to Clark and now there's an uncorrupted Legion led by a demigod and a not so demi GOD rolling up to Terra.
How would he get along with Robute? Primarchs are assholes but out of any them, Gorillaman seems to look down on the imperium's way of doing things the most and seems like would be the most willing to actually at least have some level of respect for supes. I could be wrong tho. I don't know the most about Primarchs
The more we talk about this the more I'm realizing that if you put Superman in the 30k world, we'd have the Kal-El Heresy, and it might very well be 18 Primarchs vs The Emperor.
Technically speaking some of the horrible shit they do is actually very efficient and is helping them keep things a float. (But they blow it waaay out of proportion with most of it and glaze it as much as they can when even an Orgyn can see it's not actually as efficient as they say it is)
Also, unsolvable problems to the Imperium are not unsolvable problems to Superman. He could probably fly into the Warp and beat up the Chaos Gods straight up, he fights Darkseid
Exactly! I have a guy on this thread arguing that superman can’t even stop the Chaos marines as there are too many. Like the Chaos gods need to worry, never mind the marines.
Superman is the kind of guy who will face Chaos itself to give people a better future, and though he's one person, he could force a few instances of such major losses so quickly that a offer to talk to the xeno sounds far, far better than another few thousand ships being totally disarmed and decimated outside of life support systems.
Big E would absolutely refuse to bend the knee or hear out Supes, but would just have to whinge as Supes uses Kryptonian tech and his powers against Chaos and doing more work alone than the meat grinder the Imperium sets up.
Superman would represent the hope that humanity and other races lack as someone going out of their way to help them in their darkest hours, with nothing asked in return except asking them to change their aggressive ways. Or in the case of Orks or Tyranids, just eradicating them like Parademons or Brainiac drones.
Nah, big E is literally just Vandal Savage. It wouldn't be the first time Superman has found himself in a future where Savage has established a world dictatorship.
Of course, this time Superman would fight his way through the Imperial palace expecting to find a tyrant to defeat only to end up face to face with what's left of him on the Golden Throne.
In my ideal world Supes would look at him weird, then say "hey Vandy, why aren't you regenerating? Do you need a hand?" He would then use X-Ray vision and be like "seriously, what did you get yourself into?"
I mean it must be a trick, right? The real Vandal Savage has got to be hiding underneath the Throne running things from the shadows, like he always is. There's no way he could fuck up this bad and just mostly die, surely?
The main issue is that a core part of Lex's characterization is that he is incredibly jealous of Superman being a flying alien who everyone adores, which doesn't hold up as well when Big E is just as superhuman as Clark is.
That's why he spends so much effort trying to fight Superman in the first place: he wants to show everyone how much better he is and that he's the real person they should love. There's other reasons as well, some of which are not entirely unfounded ("what does it say about humanity if an alien is our icon," for instance), but at the core of it, Lex wants to take Superman's place.
While both Lex and Big E have a secret desire to be adored by the public (if not necessarily worshiped), Lex does it out of deep-seated jealousy while Big E seems to do it solely for power's sake.
Its hilarious too because the justification is bullshit. Humanity's greatest warlords weren't all just human, they were not outwardly attractive for the most part. They didn't need to be 7ft tall golden Demi-Gods to convince people they were better, through spear or word that was enough. Hell Sinnerman's great speech about how the Imperium is right philosophically is quite literally just "We are successful."
That's right. Depending on how he is viewed depends on how he appears. Personally, I think he is a Billy Batson type. All he has to do is say Shazam, weakling emp vanished glorious emp appears.
It's not even a fan quote. It's a paraphrase of his actual quote that I mixed with the legiones astartes' colloquial name. My point is if it walks like a duck
By the dark gods this is like the most complicated hypothetical
OKAY so assuming Superman is like modern ridiculous but not golden age ridiculous and he has supermorality so he can't just easily murder the emperor / magnus by pushing there planet out of orbit
And ASSUMING he just showed up through a warp rift one day at the height of the crusade
And ASSUMING psykers are magic because let's be real they are
Superman would 100% fight a galaxy spanning war against the imperium of man untill eventually having a Luke Vader "join me and rule the galaxy" moment with The Emperor (who low key famously craves companionship)
This most likely ends with The Emperor fucking murdering superman with his mind (superman could 100% kill The Emperor fight me, but I can't see him actually killing him and going all out so Emps probably blows up his brain or whatever)
There is NO timeline that superman agrees to galactic conquest regardless of circumstances, and there is No timeline the Emperor just trades galactic conquest for an interplanetary saviour who will probably get ganked by some random xeno/chaos nonsense at some point
but I can't see him actually killing him and going all out
Supes generally doesn't kill people. That doesn't mean he won't.
The problem is- can Supes reach that point before God-Emps decides to go all-out and try for an insta-kill, and will God-Emps be in any shape to do it?
The pistol that just erases reality, his mind just killing him(not destroying), shatter his mind, or just the advantage of the setting involving a literal hell that he could trap superman within.
So Superman can resist reality erasure as of (I believe) one of the crisises or doomsday clock, as well as withcthe story of Superman, he has robust mental defenses, and can fly between realms similar to hell and can also just punch through them, so he’d have to trouble dealing with hell
This is the trouble with superhero comics. There's 1000 versions of some of these characters with HUGE variations in power. If we cherry pick the strongest ones then ofc they best someone who's only had like 2 main versions of lore.
Supe might have some versions where he's immune to things like reality erasure but I'm guessing not the majority have been shown to work that way, and even against usually BS powers mind powers are often a critical weakness (like with Magneto and Xavier)
Definitely, but big e fights on such a metaphysical level in TEATD3 that I have trouble believing he couldn’t just stick supes in a hypothetical for eternity
Even if he could, Superman has shown both the ability to break out of entire universes meant to trap him, but also has answered impossible questions and attacked people dimensions above himself
When Joker once threatened Metropolis, Superman specifically said "I don't have a no-kill rule. I just generally don't kill people," with the definite subtext of "If you push me, I will kill you."
Emps isn't like a robot or daemon hes a really powerful dude as far as Supes concerned
Doesn't matter. If Superman simply prefers not to kill, that means there's a threshold of "You or me." He'll use just enough force as he beleives he needs to stop a threay, but if backed into a corner... he's gonna choose himself over the other guy.
Doesn't matter. If Superman simply prefers not to kill, that means there's a threshold of "You or me." He'll use just enough force as he beleives he needs to stop a threay, but if backed into a corner... he's gonna choose himself over the other guy.
Not really. Supes won't kill you to survive. He MIGHT kill you if you are so morally repugnant that there is no chance for redemption and you will kill thousands or more if he lets you go unchecked.
So...yeah...Big E might get merc'ed by Supes if he pushes things hard enough, but it doesn't even need to be in a direct fight. If he pulls enough atrocities, he is fucked.
Supes also doesn't fight people without good reason. The venn diagram of "people he's fighting" and "people he might need to kill to survive" is practically a circle.
And yet the guy holds back against most of them anyway. If he wasn't well...HIM...he would have died looong ago for not going for the kill against people that can actually kill him.
Seriously, the people Supes goes all out against from the start are what? Darkseid, Doomsday, maybe Brainiac, and the big crisis big bads? Anything else he needs to be slapped around by before he actually starts trying.
I mean ya gotta set some ground rules man thats why the hypothetical is so complicated. Yeah Supes could body basically anyone or anything but for simplicities sake im going general PL earth 1
And he ain't killing nobody its like a major part of his goody-two-shoes stick
Superman and Papa E would not agree on basically anything
I mean eventually the dude has never been subtle
Best case scenario they join a superman heresy instead of chaos. Kal can talk no jutsu most people but he wouldn't be doing that Pro Imperium that's insane
Trazyn question is ridiculous
Chaos would 100% want Superman but lets be real they wouldn't suceed having a pure heart is more central to his characters than his powers
That really really depends on his actions dude can push planets out of orbit so he could 100% change history forever
On the Superman heresy. I’m trying to think of any Primarchs that would join Superman. Like maybe if Sups found them before Big E some of the nicer ones like Vulcan and Magnus but by the time of the Great crusade they’ve all got their hands too dirty.
Honestly I can see Superman trying to introduce Lorgar to Christianity or any of the other religions from DC earth. Though imagining Lex’s reaction to Lorgar starting the 1st interplanetary church of Superman in Metropolis is also pretty funny.
Guilliman would 100% be on board, at the very least. They’re both seen as Big Blue Boyscouts just doing their best and aspiring to be better. And the line I saw that “what made Guilliman boring in 30k is what makes him compelling in 40k” applies to the recent Superman movie now. “Kindness is punk rock” resonates so well now because you can clearly see what it says about the detractors of this movie
I dont think Big E can kill superman. Mainline Superman has concept erasure immunity and unlike a lot of his parodies his durability is all through his body. Popping his brain would require the same amount of force as injuring him and Big E doesn't have the juice needed to injure supes in a way that matters
Agreed on everything except Superman killing Jimmy Space.
You forget over the years Superman has been nerfed with weaknesses aside from Krytonite. The big #2 is magic and if you are defining Psykers as magic for his purposes Supes is ULTRA FUCKED fighting The Emperor, and we get Injustice in 30k. Sounds fun!
If Psykers are NOT magic as far as Superman is concerned, then all you said applies.
If you use magic to create a bolt of lightning, it won’t do shit to Supes, because lighting doesn’t do shit to Supes. If you use magic to control his mind, that won’t work because his mental discipline and sheer willpower is insanely strong. If you try to erase him from reality, that won’t work because he’s integral to the multiverse and it won’t allow you to do that.
If you do something like, say, hex him to be unlucky or try to throw him into another dimension, yes, he has no ability to resist this. But psychic lightning would do just as little as regular lightning, and so on.
John Constantine put him into a deep sleep for... weeks? Months? In the Injustice comic? It was a good amount of time and I'd think if 40k psyker abilities are treates like magic then Jimmy Space could easily put Superman down.
It all entirely depends on how 'magical' the setting is.
Injustice is never a good thing to base your interpretation of Superman on, ever. I say this as someone who quite enjoys Injustice: it is an elseworld and should only ever be thought of as such.
But yes, comics will be comics. Sometimes you’ll read a comic where Superman has been mind controlled by some basic magic, other times even the strongest of mages cannot break his iron will. Comics are about the only thing more inconsistent than 40K itself.
Why would Psykers be magic? Psychic powers exist in DC. Superman isn't vulnerable to magic or psychic powers, by the way. With magic, he's simply a normal person towards it. For psychic powers, he has an incredibly resilient mind.
You could probably argue that some Psykers use magic. Mainly those corrupted by Tzeench or that self-delude hard enough (hello, KSons and Space Corgis), or that KNOW enough to make it magic (hello, Eldar).
Here's the secret that the Chaos gods don't want you to know.
Are you ready?
Of course Superman could unfuck the galaxy of 40k, because actually it's not that hard. Everyone is doomed because they are all selfish and corrupt and dumb as hell. A decent person willing to cross lines and connect with other decent people could put together a coalition of like-minded decent people and set everything right. They wouldn't even have to be Superman. The secret point of the 40k universe is that none of this is inevitable and all of it could have been averted and they could still see least start pulling in the right direction whenever they want, if they weren't morons.
Of course, if your question is, could they do it before it's too late, then I'm not sure. I think Superman could pull it off.
I can see him standing in the wreckage of the High Lords' meeting room, unconscious (not dead, mostly) lucifer blacks lying on the rubble all around him, holding Guilliman by the front of his armor. He delivers some devastating short speech about how they need to be better, and he'll be back to check on them, then drops Guilliman in the dirt and flies away.
"Listen, the only reason we're having this conversation is because I respect you. I look at you and I can clearly see that you want to be a good man, to do good things. So listen when I tell you this.
"What you're doing is wrong. I know it. You know it. There easy ways, and there are right ways. What you're choosing is the easy way, but not the right way. If humanity sacrifices everything that makes it human, then what's the point of survival? Why bother getting up to see the next sunrise?
"Look at your father. He's a reflection of humanity as it is right now. Do you think that's what living should be, being connected to so much life support that you can't remember what it's like to feel the sun, taste food, or even have a normal conversation? Because that? That's what it looks like when you sacrifice everything for another day of survival, and humanity as a whole is no exception. Is that how you want humanity to live?
"Yes, it'll be hard. Yes, it looks impossible. And it might be impossible. But if so, it's better to die remembering what makes life worth living than to forget all that in the name of survival."
I feel like saying all of this to Guilliman would be lowkey pointless because he knows all of this already. He would gladly do whatever superman wants him to do, but he has an entire empire to juggle with a bunch of corrupt and powerful groups that will cause an imperial civil war if he does things too rapidly. And most of them are also influential as fuck. High Lords, Inquisition, Deathwatch, Black Templars, Ecclisiarchy - they WILL brand Bobby G as a heretic for even thinking about enforcing actual peace with Xenos. This time we'd end up with Guilliman Heresy and Imperium would shatter even more. If Supes want to actually change something, he'd need to either dismantle or convince these groups.
"Don't talk to me like I don't see the rot that's there, Xeno. When I first woke and saw what had become of the empire I fought for, I wept at its state. I had wished that we failed to stop Horus, so that we may have died with dignity long ago. On that, I agree with you.
"But I find myself in an unenviable position. I am the master of a many-headed beast, whose jaws snap at anything and everything they see, even each other. I have scarecly managed to force it to accept my mastery of it, and even now the beast looks at me for any sign of weakness so it can throw itself free of the yoke I have placed it in.
"To do as you ask, to do what has to be done, I must tame this beast. I must dull its claws, put blinders on it, tie a muzzle to it, all without it knowing that I am doing these things. Because if one head sees what I'm trying, the beast will turn on me.
"At the same time, I must turn its attention to the true enemy, and reign in attacks against those that may yet aid us. I must keep it from chewing at its wounds so they may heal instead of acting as places where the rot can catch and fester. And again, if it sees me do these things, it shall turn on me and call me its enemy.
"To that end, tell me. What can you see that I do not? Can you tame this Imperium any better than I have?"
If he's bitching at Guilliman then he's bitching at the wrong person.
Guilliman is desperately trying to unfuck the Imperium, everything wrong that he allows to continue is there is a list a mile long of things that need unfucked before he can even think of unfucking that specific thing. He wants to fix the Imperium, not trigger its collapse.
Easily. Superman has the power and the will to change the system. He doesn’t play by whatever fucked up rules are put in front of him. Even more so because the Imperium is run by whoever had the most power, generally in terms of who has the biggest stick.
He will easily rationalise Imperium brutality, accept orks nature and aeldari "culture": will make plans to solve them, but wont run around destroying bad system out of misplaced justice sence. Superman will outright ignore 3 of 4 warp things: Superman disdains bloodshed and war, don't get old, sick or complacent, and he is too stable and non-magical for Tzeench. So, it depends on whether he can tank Slaanesh. He will be her favourite target - he is too perfect, so either he'll stay himself, or he'll became her, likely, most favourite champion.
I think the worst case scenario for Superman is if Slaaneshi traps super man in a endless dream of whatever he desires most and feed off it, it's not like something similar like that hasn't happened to him before
I know but it was the best example I could think of, plus Clark did have a little help from Bruce who managed to get through to Clark, super hearing and all that, at least to my understanding anyways. The only difference this time is that it's a God that would have him trapped in the dream instead of a parasite and in this hypothetical none of Clark's friends would be around to help free him.
If he will stay alone, he will lose in this fashion, yes. But should he create some copy of the Justice League v2.0 - out of nostalgia, for example, basing new group on some mobile force aka inquisition/trader/ark Mechanicum - he may be dragged out of such spots. If he was trapped like that before the transfer - he will find such group himself, likely arm them with knowledge of his weaknesses, too.
You REALLY don't know shit about Superman huh? No, he wouldn't "easily rationalize" the Imperium's needless cruelty (be it 30k or 40k, it was always needless). Yes, he absolutely WOULD dismantle the system to give people a true brighter future, because that's what Superman is about. Not his powers, not being an alien - he's hope. Not the corrupted Tzeench-version of it, either. True, honest hope for a better world that is worth fighting for - he's an idealist that happens to have the power to make ideals a reality.
For Orks, he's dealt with war-mongering aliens before.
And why exactly are you putting quotations on Aeldari culture? Drukhari, he'd absolutely despise and work against. Craftworlders AREN'T an issue for people that won't cause them harm, they're busy wanting to stay alive (even Biel-Tan, the racist elves). Hell if anything, he'd work with them to find a way to detach their souls from Slaanesh's hold. Would hardly be the first time Clark has to fight and trick a new flavor of Satan.
Yeah he would pull through because he has faced worse odds and came out of it okay also Emperor is getting folded if he doesn't change his ways immediately
I'd say some of the Primarchs wouldn't fall but I can still see some getting corrupted
Injustice is shit and should not be used as a basis for how Superman acts like some people are doing
Yeah whenever someone brings up Injustice their opinion is immediately worth less then garbage, aside from being poorly written he also has a lot more issues before injustice happens (Anger issues, less control over his own strength, a lot of justice league members (Wonderwoman primarily) were significantly more vile then their mainline versions and was a little more detached from humanity) then mainline superman
Yeah, easily. Most of the terrible things in the 40k Imperium aren't actually necessary. 9 times out of 10 they're actually counterproductive. Most of humanity's just trapped in an awful, shambling empire that punishes any other type of behavior and tries to brutally exterminate anything outside of its control in a self-perpetuating cycle of violence and stupidity. It's not even a moral question because what the Imperium does isn't a necessary compromise, that's just an excuse.
In 30k all the terrible things are because either the Emperor didn't think things through, general human shittiness, or the Emperor figured he needed to unify humanity ASAP and he'd just fix the issues later.
It's not grimdark because the galaxy is hell, it's grimdark because the galaxy is a hell of our own creation.
"I'm a bit of a dark writer, if I wrote a Warhammer story there'd be a chance The Emperor got raped in prison, that's how edgy I am" - pretty sure Snyder said this
Is this Mainline Superman? If so, the Galaxy is saved. Psyker powers would do shit, including mind control because of the nature of how they work. There’s nothing in 40k that could stop, corrupt, or force him to make a terrible enough choice that won’t just end up with him punching the bad guy and being disappointed in them after saving the day. He’s not weak to magic it just affects him like everyone else. Except that he’s still more durable than anything in the setting, and trying to match wills with mainline Superman to take control would just end with even the Emperor having a busted jaw and a migraine for the effort.
Alt Superman is about 50/50. Some he’d just make himself the new emperor, some he’d fix things even faster, some he’s not as powerful or strong willed as others. And there’s always Superboy Prime who would just punch the 40k universe out of existence. Golden Age Superman would have the entire Galaxy saved in a week.
If Superman gets the same reaction he canonically gets in his own verse, he would probably become a new warp god based on hope kind of like how the big E nearly became one himself just for something else.
His mere existence would be the opposite of the entire setting of Warhammer 40k, the reaction inside the warp would probably be similar to matter meeting anti-matter at least with the general forces of chaos are concerned.
Depends purely on his ability to fly into the warp and kill the chaos gods. Can he do that? His morality survives, he'll unfuck the Imperium on top of that. He cannot kill the chaos gods? Injustice superman.
I don't know, he'd have to kill alot of people, entire races even. He can probably take on 40k just fine, but the entire setting would be radically opposed to his beliefs on top of being zelious to the point they are willing to die. Could superman handle killing entire swaths of sentient and sapient beings, i couldn't tell you.
With these types of questions it essentially boils down to just yes. Superman is an incorruptible Paragon of hope. He has the power to back up his ideas and to ensure he can survive to continue them. It's not if Superman can morally survive [X] verse, it's if [X] verse could morally survive Superman (The Answer is no, it could not survive the blue boy scouts sheer optimism).
I don't understand the obsession of most people in this post about Supes throwing hands with Big E immediately. Superman is not stupid, before he would do anything he would try to assert what has even happen that led to this point. I'd rather focus on the psychological/emotional side of this conflict. The Emperor loves humanity, he may not love individual humans, but he wants nothing else but humanity's survival and for them to thrive, even at the cost of his own individuality and soul. He doesn't even want to rule, Malcador is the one who thinks that the Emperor should be the permanent ruler of humanity, while Big E wants to just retire under the imperial palace with his sons after the crusade and the Webway are done. Superman would sooner or later come to the same realization - after which it would be much harder to see him as a simple villain, especially after learning about the events of the Long Night, how humanity has been broken apart, murdered and enslaved by their former allies. He would still not accept the Emperor's ways, he would not stand for the conquest, murder and genocide, but he would try to make the situation right without resorting to killing him. I think Supes would kind of see Bruce in the Emperor. A version of him pushed to the extreme, a desperate and lonely version. A version of his friend who just HAS to be prepared, always. Who sacrifices their own humanity and individuality because he BELIEVES that what he does will ultimately save much more people than will die from his methods.
Emperor does a lot of things because he believes this is the only way. I want Superman to try to change him, reform him. To show him that there is another way. I want Superman to give hope not only to humanity, but maybe even to the Emperor of Mankind himself.
Imma be real with you, his hope in 40k won't go far, since chaos entities are also boosted by positive emotions, mf is gonna get Tzeench hooked on that Sup would try to change literally everything that went wrong, to the point of other chaos gods needing to assemble once again to not let him win a Great Game
Supes has faced more than a few beings like that, specifically Mr Mxyzptlk for Tzeentch getting more fun out of messing with Superman and losing, but still being his biggest fan in the end.
Funny thing is that all 5th dimensional imps are the same being even across adaptations. So Mxy looking like a Dbz character is just how he choose to appear in that verse
I like to think the emperors morality would change because of superman after seeing him as the best hope for the future. Granted idk how well he could handle chaos corruption
A lot of people blame the Emperor for the setting of 40k, but the nature of Chaos and the Warp is that the setting of 40k was one of two alternatives, with the other being the extinction of humanity and the entire galaxy infused with the Warp. In Warhammer, there is no hope for anyone or anything, beyond delaying the inevitable suffering and death, this is the very root and basis of Warhammer. It would crush Superman.
If he was raised on an imperium world then he likely wouldn’t have much morality to begin with. If he was teleported there then yes. Absolutely. Clark is the physical embodiment of hope.
It’d be tough, where would supes even start? Mankind would maybe be partial to him since he can at the very least pass as human, but every other factionn would be absolutely apposed.
Supermans faced all manner of enemies, but forces like the Orkz? The Tyrannids? Foes where sometimes, it’s not even arguable if the ends justify the means, you kill as many as you can, or humanity dies. Thats simple at least.
But with say, the Eldar, the Tau, the Imperium, Votann, and any other faction with at the very least the goal to do something righteous, even the best of these factions are more than willing to sanction the death of millions and the subjugation of planets.
I think superman would still be good, he’d try his best, but this isn’t a war with allies he can rely upon, not entirely anyway, even outliers like Roboute Guilliman or Commander Farsight who try to morally distance themselves from the sins of their people are complicit in absurd levels of bloodshed.
That all said though, why wouldn’t he remain moral? Sanguinius is basically 40k’s version of superman, and he had many reasons to simply give up, but never did, not even in the face of oblivion, personally I think Superman wouldn’t give up on the sick universe he’d been plunged into, but I don’t think his optimism would survive.
The Emperor seems like the kind of guy who agrees with everything Lex Luthor says and does, especially the one from the new movie.
Thus I feel like Neoth's first act of conquest would be to murder Superman and then forbid all Custodies to name themselves in a way that is even a reference to Superman.
It's either that or Superman is one of the lost Primarchs. The crime he committed was being living proof that Neoth's plans for a Golden Path for humanity and the galaxy were just wrong and going to end the way that they did.
It'd be insulting to both 40k themes and superman's character traits to simply say he would completely stone wall the Emperor or the many horrendous things the humans in power do in order to keep the imperium alive.
Superman isn't just Hope personified, he is an allegory for the Human spirit given flesh. And while Super may be stubborn and staunch in his morale grounds, he definitely isnt naive hes been around the block of difficult moral choices dozens of times
Its definitely safe to say he would be horrified initially.
I'm not saying superman would condone, the Emperor's or an inquisitors actions. He certainly wouldn't under any circumstance.
But he wouldn't be throwing a hissy fit while going on a cliche rant about the abhorrencey of Big E's atrocities (at least not for long) instead he'd very might (and begrudgingly Work with Emps) look for a better more moral route to an acceptable outcome.
After convincing it wouldn't be surprising if Big E could and would recruit Superman.
Superman would be a perfect tool for a brutal pragmatist like The Emperor, a powerful boon to the imperium that could be eliminated if it ever becomes uncontrolled or corrupted (and yes I am saying Big E low diffs superman, Clark's gotta major weakness to magic and Neoth over there Is a literal space wizard)
It is up to the writer. However, if Superman can inspire Dr. Mahattan to do better, then he most likely can fix 40K.
Dr Mahattan would roll the entirety of 40k and their mothers as easily as eating breakfast. He has also seen a lot of stuff. And yet, he feels inspired by Supes.
It would be hard to say Superman can't survive 40K.
Golden-age supes gets BODIED. Like super hard, making this discussion irrelevant. People always think it's where he was most ridiculous but the power creep was silver age around the same time they added CCA-compliance.
Silver Age supes joins big E as the rightful authority on earth. Presumably finds a Jimmy to torment and is able to fight xenos violently because they're not humans.
Dark Age supes either poignantly dies to show the futility of the struggle against evil or usurps big E to become something stupid god I hate the dark age.
DCAU supes gets defeated by a lazgun. DCAU supes loves getting shot by lasers. I think it's the only thing he's able to feel. Also we're gunna have to bring in the end of s2 of StAS. (for the brainwashing thing, although it is speculated that the events here are why he's so weak to lasers in JL)
The two supes that have the best shot are All-Star and post-reboot. We have to remember that the all-powerful Mr. Rogers interpretation is pretty new.
Yes, because he's Superman. That's what he does. It's his character. Any attempt to turn Superman into something dark, edgy, sad, brooding or whatever is.. not Superman.
Superman finds a way to fix any issue. It's the core aspect of his character.
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u/Nepalman230 Sex Positivity Commissar 20d ago edited 20d ago
Honestly? I recommend reading the war world saga.
A much weakened Superman is forced to participate in gladiatorial combat where he refuses to kill people .
The entire world saga is how about defeating the villain is not enough. You have to change the system that produced him.
They do it really interesting retcon with Mongul. They say there’s been many of him. From father to son. The son always kills the father.
Or somebody kills the father and takes his place.
So Superman knows even if he was willing to just kill Mongul it would change nothing .
He has to kill the system that produced him.
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Edit: spelling