How intelligent is Superman really...

How intelligent is Superman really? I've heard that Batman and Lex Luthor are 6th level intellects while Kryptonians were 8th but under a yellow sun are 9th.

He's smart enough to be able to maintain the fortress of solitude and all the alien tech within basically on his own. He's probably not Lex Luthor or Brainiac-level smart, but he's still fairly high up there in the super genius scale.

Depends on the writer and the continuity. This is true of most aspects of most comic book characters, but it's especially true of Superman's intelligence, which ranges from "reasonably smart dude from Kansas" to "genius scientist who can easily understand technology from an incredibly advanced extinct civilization".

Depends on the writer.

Well, I'd say he's Luthor tier or slightly lower, but with a way better database. Fortress is OP.

He receives help from the fortress' AI or 'm wrong?

Depends on writer and which reboot you're talking.
Also hard to separate out IQ from "thinks a million times faster than you do" and "I know the address and phone number of EVERYONE in Metropolis, Miss Lane." Having a good memory isn't the same as being smart.

In the 60's, Lois was severely injured in an accident and a brilliant doctor turned her into a mermaid to save he life. Later, she's dying for some plot-driven reason and Superman proposes to reverse the surgery.
The AMA protests. Only licensed doctors are allowed to operate.

So he goes into a medical library, reads every book in the place with X-ray vision at superspeed, and agrees to be tested by the Certification Board. Of course, he aces the exam and the doctors enthuse that he must be awarded every known degree.

Then he changes into surgical scrubs and goes to work. Lois gets up off the table minutes after he finishes without any scars.

He's always been the same level of intelligence. Everyone else around him is made smarter or dumber as plot dictates.

Are there any JL writers that actually write Superman and Batman well? Usually it's either Superman is dumbed down to infinity to make normal things Batman does seem smart, or Batman is just an edgy loser that always loses to Superman.
Are there any who can write a good balance?

That's a very modern interpretation. Back in the Silver Age, he built robots so he could keep his identity secret... of course, the damn things always broke down at the worst possible moment, so by the 70's they were relegated to inadvertently creepy janitors who got destroyed every once in a while.

Grant Morrison did this in less than one floppy in his New 52 Action Comics run, save the doctors weren't bitching about Superman not having a degree, he merely learned the knowledge because it was more expedient due to the injuries that Lois suffered (simply severe comic book emergency/hero proximity villain attack related accident, no reversal surgery or mermaid shenanigans required), and used his own body (including his Focused Beams of Heat Energy™) to perform the surgery.

He's certainly smarter than that pansy Clark Kent.

He's descended from the genetically-enhanced genome of a super-intelligent species and whose parents were at the top of the food chain among them.

Jor-El and Lara are canonically 8th level intelligence beings so their son, by birth and genetics, is capable of that level of thinking, at minimum, which would be smarter than Lex or Bruce.

There's a lot of people arguing on-line that Lex is. a 12th level intellect but that's not canon; even when he was a good guy versus an anti-hero, Brainiac got the best of his (Morrison's Earth 2/Crime Syndicate Story, for example; likewise in the final Pre-Flashpoint stories with Lex, or in the Y2K stories).

The Silver Age fortress was built by Superman on his own, without 'Kryptonian sunstone' or crystals as was shown in the Donnerverse or Smallville. So any AI would also have been built and designed by Superman. Obviously, AI and other computational based machinery can exceed their human/humanoid creators, if you want to get that specific.

>He's probably not Lex Luthor

Lex has also been shown to repeatedly state that Superman is the only person worth having a conversation with because he's the only one who can keep up with him. So by his own admission, Superman is viewed by Lex himself as at least as smart or comparable to him in intellect. This was seen as recently as Superman Unchained in the New 52, as well as the ongoing runs.

>Superman reads some books about medicine
>has 0 experience operating people
>uses common human medical equipement
>he realizes the surgery on his own
>Lois gets up off the table minutes after he finishes without any scars.
>without any scars.
thats warhammer 40k level of bullshit writting

>Jor-El and Lara are canonically 8th level intelligence beings so their son, by birth and genetics, is capable of that level of thinking
Not how genetics work.

Pre crisis Superman was smart. Post crisis Superman is a dumb hick from Kansas.

Welcome to every 60s Superman comic ever

The smartest. He can use supermath.

Didn't the association Lex had with the 12th level intellect designation emerge from the final episode of JLU when Metron said "You need to be a 12th level intellect to survive" to which Lex countered "I'm over qualified"?

I think the real world equivalent to 1st...12th level intelligence would be encephalization quotients.

While generally a person's offspring will regress towards the mean, you've got to take into consideration that superman is not human.

Either his brain is efficient enough or has enough connections and storage to have an "8th level intelligence."

If anything he's probably pretty damn dumb being raised on a farm out in the middle of nowhere.

However, because of his genetics he can achieve superhuman intelligence.

He's a pretty smart guy, but mostly he just thinks at superspeed.

People are saying he is Luthor tier smart, but does that make Batman smarter? I always assumed Luthor was the smartest human in DC, but if Superman is just as smart is Bruce actually dumb compared? Or is Bats just smarter in criminal psych and detective work rather than technology?

that is just plain awesome!!!!

i love superman, but silver age superman is surreal in a way that borders on outsider art

It's canon in Justice League Unlimited that Lex is at least 12th level intellect.
>Brainiac got the best of him
That doesn't mean he isn't a 12th level intellect. Being smart doesn't make you incapable of being tricked by someone who isn't as smart as you.
If anything most grifters / conmen would probably score pretty low on IQ tests. Tricking people isn't the most intellectual task in the world, and people who overthink things are sometimes easier to trick than dumb people who know better than to get lost in bullshit details.

40K is like a little baby alright. T.his is Silver age Superman were talking about

There is a massive gap between Batman and Lex Luthor.

As for Superman, he's as smart as Luthor, but has ethics and not as much free time. I'm sure if he studied biology to ridiculous levels, he could find a cure for cancer, but he also has to deal with stopping Lex from throwing kryptonite-covered babies off of rooftops.

>Jor-El and Lara are canonically 8th level intelligence beings

Any sauce for this? And does that mean it's true Lex/Bruce are 6th level intellects? Does Supes have any intellectual feats you know about?

>The Silver Age fortress was built by Superman on his own

I don't even know why I resist reading Silver Age Superman. This is so dope.

I feel like Red Son is the quintessential structure for intellectual capability of both Lex and Clark, or at least the one I'm most comfortable with in terms of balance. Clark shows that he is capable of incredible things like speed reading to understand medicine and political maneuvering in order to run a country, but ultimately he falls to the sheer cunning and drive of Lex. And it's not from Clark being incapable of standing up to Lex, it's the fact that he took on far too much in regards to governance and world building while Lex had a "fuck it all, I'm just in it for the simple reason of beating this man" mentality.

He did the same thing in New 52. He used his fingernails as a scalpel.

>I feel like Red Son is the quintessential structure for intellectual capability of both Lex and Clark, or at least the one I'm most comfortable with in terms of balance.
>That sentence
>capeshit

I like when he's extremely technically and emotionally intelligent, but a bit naive and guileless.

I think leaves room for Batman while keeping Superman a genius. Batman is wily and cunning above all, which Superman doesn't necessarily need to be.

Does Superman even have to be all that smart, from a story perspective?
I mean, he is an ivestigative journalist; he should have a certain level of intelligence and wit. But his defining characteristics I wouldn't say are his brains, but all the things he can do and his heart. Not necessarily in that order.
I feel the dichotomy between him and Lex works best with the latter being incredibly smart but ultimately not powerful on his own while the other is a superpowered everyman.
He can still outwit Lex from time to time to foil his plans - You wouldn't say John McClane is smarter than Hans Gruber - but to me making Superman superintelligent detracts from the character.

don't even bother with retarded fictional intelligence levels

Welcome to the funny books

Who is the smartest character in comic books? Reed Richards?

How slowly is he swinging that thing if he can fit in six "ha"s in mid-swing?

>I like when he's extremely technically and emotionally intelligent, but a bit naive and guileless.

Naive about what?

>I think leaves room for Batman

This is why Batman should be removed or they occupy separate universes. Taking away from Superman to make room for a separate character is terrible and stupid but sadly the norm. And it's always Superman who loses at when it genuinely doesn't make any sense.

Sauce?

Slow night tonight?

>jor-el
what about lex?