List of the Supermen

[Uncle Yuan]

If we're talking women now....How's about Ms. Marvel and Rogue?

Neither of whom in any way evoke the feeling or look of superman beyond "strong and flies."

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

I agree with you, uncle.

[lugaru]

Well I invite any of you guy's to define what makes superman and then you can compare stuff with other characters... you know, powers, civilian personality, look, application of powers, morality, etc...

[doctorchallenger]

45. Titan - Dark horse's Comics Greatest World/Catalyst-Agents of Change

[UnkoMan]

I'd say Superman is a really strong, tough, flying guy who pretends to be a normal or even somewhat wimpy human.

Thus, a prime candidate would be Megaton Man, if nobody's said him.

Of course it's not set in stone. There's also super strong flyers who happen to be from other words (aliens, dimensional traveler, whatever), who were sent to Earth as infants. Or even not as infants. Omniman (of Invincible) is meant to represent the Superman type. He fits into my first example though.

One other big factor is respect or position in his appropriate universe. Superman is the big cheese of heroes. Any strong flying guy who happens to be head of the supers of his universe or at least well respected in the public eye could very well be a take on Supes. Like Prime, for instance, although he's more Captain Marvel.

[thanoson]

46. Captain Hero and his sister?

[darkphoenixII]

Ms. Marvel I can see. Rouge...not so much.

[danhagen]

We should also consider the REVERSE Supermen, who are also all over the place — Bizarro and Super-Menace and Gen. Zod, obviously, but also Luthor (smart where Superman is strong, evil where Superman is good) and even Adam Strange (who travels from Earth to alien world to be a champion, instead of the reverse, and who uses his intelligence instead of his physical powers to defeat otherworldly menaces). Even Batman, in a way. And the secret identity itself is often a reversed image of the hero. This is an interesting illustration of how the superhero meme evolves. Note, by the way, how often mirror images of the heroes crop up in comics — almost as if something deeper is going on there. During the Silver Age, particularly, they were all over the place — "Oh, it's a robot me, or a mirror me, or a giant turtle me!"
Of the direct mirror images, here is also Big Bang's Ultiman. The best of them was Alan Moore's Supreme, which showed what he could have done with the "real" Superman comic.

[daglob]

Probably getting a little far from the original question here, but once there was a fictional character named Homer Price. In one of his stories he met Super-Duper, or at least the actor who portrayed him on TV. The stories were illustrated, so we got to see Super-Duper. He looked VERY familiar, from his boots to his cape to the diamond (or maybe triangle) on his chest with the "S-D" in it.

Also, one of the identities of Richard Lupoff's "The Triune Man" is obviously a Superman knockoff.

Back on track, there was Jerry Robinson's Atoman.

Hey, is someone gonna makea final list when we get through?

[danhagen]

I almost forgot "Indigo" from that wonderful 1977 novel "Super-Folks" by Robert Mayer. I highly recommend it. It anticipated all the later prose superhero material and, I always thought, inspired part of Alan Moore's "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" "Indigo" is a code name, by the way. His superhero name is never mentioned in the novel, but we all know what it is.