Powers & Abilities

[kontykebomb]

Powers

As a partial genetic adolescent clone of the world-renowned hero, Superman, Superboy exhibits many of the same baseline Kryptonian powers and abilities that his genetic "father" possesses. However, due to the human DNA used to patch holes in his Kryptonian DNA, Kon-El’s existing powers are considerably inferior to Kal-El’s, he lacks some of the more advanced powers his progenitor possesses, like flight and heat vision, and is presumably incapable of ever acquiring them by normal developments.

Kryptonian Physiology: Superboy possesses most of the physical abilities of a Kryptonian who has absorbed the solar energy of a yellow sun.

Super Strength: As one of his main powers, Superboy possesses prodigious levels of superhuman strength, far exceeding that of a normal human being. He can easily lift (press) several hundreds of tons directly overhead under normal conditions, pick up and move heavy objects such as automobiles and boulders, rip apart or shatter reinforced substances like concrete (walls) and steel plating (tanks), and bend steel without effort. Superboy also uses his strength in physical combat, allowing him to fight off and/or overpower enemies that show similar or greater strength. He even managed to immobilize Superman for several seconds using nothing more than the power of his muscle and sinews.

Super Leap: To compensate for his inability to fly like Superman, Superboy uses the muscles in his legs to jump incredible heights and vast distances; he has been seen covering at least a mile in a single bound and can use these leaps in rapid succession to traverse all sorts of terrain. He often chooses this method to get to his destinations rather than running, though can seamlessly transition from run to leap to run as needed. Due to his lack of flight, however, he is not well-versed in aerial combat and prefers to either strike an aerial opponent with blunt force impact or grapple and drag them back to the ground.

Super Speed: Another of his main powers, Superboy can move at extremely high (meta-human) levels of speed, frequently making use of it when charging at enemies. Like Superman, Superboy’s speed is officially classified as "enhanced" rather than "super" since neither he nor his "father" possess the same level of speed as the Speedsters (Flash, Kid Flash, Impulse). Although not as fast as Kid Flash or Superman (faster than a speeding bullet), Kon has displayed impressive measures of superhuman speed and reaction time, capable of dodging and attacking many enemies faster than they can follow.

Invulnerability: Like Superman, Superboy is nearly indestructible, his Kryptonian physique possessing an "impenetrable" and "indestructible" anatomy that is practically immune to all forms of physical harm and damage. His skin is capable of withstanding intense temperatures both hot and cold and can endure great impacts with little to no affect (he has ignored high caliber gunfire and survived direct hits by field artillery cannon shells). This allows him to rush into dangerous scenes with little care for what might actually happen. Out of all his teammates, Superboy has taken the most punishment from their missions but has yet to be permanently injured or display any lasting injuries. He’s been tackled through walls, shot with guns and explosives, had his feet dipped in lava, and came out with no obvious physical damage. However, while he displays a high degree of resistance to injury and presumably disease, he does experience pain, and thanks to his invulnerability, has no way for his pain sensors to be damaged enough to go numb.

Super Hearing: In addition to his raw physical enhancements, Superboy’s sense of hearing operates at superhuman levels. He can pick up the faintest of sounds over long distances and perceive frequencies both high and low far outside of the range of a normal human being to hear. Since his hearing is excessively acute, Kon often uses this power to overhear conversations from far away or catch concealed noises others can’t notice, as he can listen to distant whispers with crystal clear clarity as though it were uttered at a normal volume directly next to him. Ultrasonic communication can be used to contact him privately, but causes him pain for the duration due to the decibel level.

Super Vision: In addition to his raw physical enhancements, Superboy’s sense of sight operates at superhuman levels. While he cannot utilize energy from his eyes like Superman, Kon can shift the frequency of his sight into the infrared range and use this infrared vision to visually detect heat signatures and easily see in the dark. Likewise, he also possesses telescopic vision and microscopic vision, allowing him to "zoom in" with his eyes much like an eagle to see things that are too far away or too small to observe with his naked eye.

Tactile Telekinesis [Non-canon]: Tactile Telekinesis (or TTK) is the power to utilize a personal force field of telekinetic energy. Being completely surrounded by a field of telekinetic energy, the user can protect themselves from harm and physical damage, can enhance their physical abilities, and can manipulate, move, and control objects that they can touch, include objects so large that the user does not have the strength to move them physically. They can even simulate flight by pushing their body through the air via the TTK field. Other uses include propelling objects off the ground, disassembling objects, generating psionic blasts, causing objects to explode, scanning objects through touch, and even simulate superhuman hearing to cover a planet.

NOTE: Unlike his comic counterpart, Superboy does not possess this power in Young Justice canon, but it can be adapted to him for threads if desired. In the comics, when Superboy was first introduced, he lacked all the powers his Young Justice counterpart currently demonstrates. Due to escaping his growth tube before reaching maturity and due to issues regarding cloning a Kryptonian (whose completely indestructibility makes collecting a DNA sample nearly impossible), Superboy was instead given tactile telekinesis, which allowed him to simulate Superman's primary powers (flight, strength, invulnerability). As time passed and Superboy matured, he began to manifest all the normal Kryptonian powers, causing him to use his TTK less and less. In Young Justice, however, Superboy has not developed tactile telekinetic abilities; instead, his powers are identical of Superman's, albeit inferior, and he lacks some powers such as flight and heat vision.

Abilities

Hand-to-Hand Combatant: While initially relying on his sheer strength and speed, Superboy has since developed his rudimentary brawling into a highly-proficient, close-quarters combat skill due to his regular training under Black Canary. He tends to avoid the more acrobatic and methodical fighting styles of his teammates and instead became especially talented at high-speed takedowns and strength-based grappling to utilize his preference for charging and holding. Eventually, he became skilled enough to take an active role in training newer members of the Team in similar forms of combat.

Intelligence: Superboy’s reckless attitude in battle and naivety towards social situations often sees people assume he lacks intelligence. However, though he’s nowhere near a genius like members of the Bat family, Kon does possess a great degree of intellect and academic knowledge. While being force-grown in Cadmus labs over the first 16 weeks of his life, Kon’s genomorph programming included being telepathically force-fed information by G-Gnomes in lieu of a traditional education. Because of this, Superboy possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of several academic subjects including math, science, engineering, literature, World History in particular, and other fields, including forays into mechanics and computer operations. In the same vein, he is an expert multilinguist and he can understand and speak many languages fluently, including English, Spanish, Atlantean, French, Korean, Arabic and Russian. However, due to his premature emergence and emotional immaturity, his intelligence is often compromised by his pride and explosive temper.

Mechanical Engineering: Though he initially started out as a tinkerer, Superboy was frequently seen working on and repairing his motorcycle and Sphere as a mixture of habit and relaxing downtime. His skill level rapidly developed, indicating his mechanical and engineering prodigy, and he would eventually learn how to not only repair his motorcycle and Sphere, but also enter the mechanic field as his chosen profession and make a career out of it.

Paraphernalia

While Superboy is fully capable of fighting and traveling under his own power, and regularly does so, there are times when he chooses to use different items and tools to assist him in his superhero duties, either to overpower an enemy outclassing him or travel without expending his energy.

Shields: Developed by Lex Luthor, Superboy’s human genetic donor, "shields" are a series of small pentagonal patches that, when applied to Superboy’s bare skin, suppress the influence of his human DNA and thus unleash his full Kryptonian potential. The process used to create Superboy involved patching Kryptonian DNA with human DNA and then splicing this Kryptonian DNA into the human genome, thus creating a being of a hybrid nature. One of the side-effects of this procedure is a suppression of Superboy’s full Kryptonian potential. This suppression resulted in his inferior powers, inability to develop flight capability or unleash various forms of radiation from his eyes like a full-blooded Kryptonian. Luthor’s "shields" are a novel solution to this problem. Each "shield" is only affective for an hour and cannot be removable during that period of time. Once the hour elapses, the patch blackens and Superboy’s powers return to normal as his human DNA reasserts itself.

When under the effect of a "shield" patch, Superboy’s full Kryptonian abilities are permitted to surface for an hour, including:
Flight: Superboy gains the ability to move himself through the air and even space under his natural powers, though requires more training in aerial combat.
Heat Vision: Superboy gains the ability to project beams of heat energy from his eyes, capable of starting fires and melting through substances.
X-ray Vision: Superboy gains the ability to see through most solid objects at will but is unable to see through some substances such as lead.
Super Speed: Superboy gains the ability to enhance his already extremely high (meta-human) levels of speed, almost on par with the Speedsters.

Motorcycle: Like other members of the Team, Superboy has his own personal mode of transportation: a customized motorcycle. Though he can easily travel using leaps and running, there are times when he doesn’t want to expend his energy or has to go incognito. Superboy is rather skilled at operating his bike, making good use of it on a mission to guard parts from a foe. A mechanical engineering prodigy, he likes working on the vehicle in his spare time, honing his mechanic skills and tuning the bike’s performance and comfort.

Solar Suit [Former]: While undergoing his forced-growth period in Cadmus Labs and later placed in his cryogenic suspension, Superboy wore a white skin-tight full-body solar suit with a red Superman S-symbol on his chest. The suit allowed him to absorb yellow sun radiation to fuel his powers even underground. He wore the suit after being freed from his pod, but it was damaged during a later fight. Superboy continued to wear the tattered solar suit until he bought new clothes from Forever Sixteen in the Central City Mall three days later, after which the suit was discarded.