Whether you’re a DC fan, an MCU lover, or just fed up with superhero nonsense in general, odds are you still have a soft spot in your heart for Superman… the quintessential hero. Over the years, there have been some pretty blatant clones of this archetypal do-gooder and some more subtle variations. Our ranking here is based off of comparing the live-action and animated versions of Superman ripoffs that are out there against the peak version of DCEU’s Superman.
Starting the list is Samaritan, an interesting take on Supes. Technically in live-action we only see the O.G. character through flashback but we do see his twin brother Nemesis and get an example of what Samaritans powers would be. For this list we are considering Nemesis as Samaritan as he took on the hero role by the end of the film. In the comics, Samaritan came from the 35th century and the time traveling trip back to our era imbued him with some insane, reality warping powers but we have no way of knowing if any of that could be tied in to Stalline’s live=action version. Although we don’t know the upper limits of his strength, we know that Samaritan was much less durable than everyone else on the list here due to the fact that he was susceptible to internal injuries from heavy impacts even if he healed quickly.
Samaritan came from the 35th century and the time traveling trip back
to our era imbued him with some insane, reality warping powers…
Following an over the hill hero would be an underage villain, Brightburn. The angsty teen is a superman ripoff that ended up on the dark side of things. Brightburn’s feats are not super impressive but he did tank a plane crash and his only weakness seems to be the metal from his home ship. We feel a full grown Brightburn would punch higher on the list but for now he stays here.
Next on the list is Homelander, another Superman clone that went mad with power in a weaker universe. Homelander might be top dog in his tiny corner of reality, but he’s still proven that he’s nowhere near the strength levels of Kal-El as he has also been injured by much weaker characters while the rest of the doppelgängers on the list are planetary threats.
A significant notch above Homie is Omni-Man. Dude has thousands of years of battle experiences and has literally destroyed planets without breaking a sweat. We haven’t seen DCEU’s Superman pull off the sheer amount of feats that Omni-Man has, but we also haven’t seen Clark’s upper limits so this would be a tough fight. We know Supes ate a nuke and while weakened, punched through the world-engine but it’s unclear if he could destroy a planet if he had to. Comic Superman slaps Omni-Man hands down but this version is too tough to call a winner.
- Gladiator
- Omni-Man
- Homelander
- Brightburn*
- Samaritan
The only stronger Superman knockoff we’ve seen display any type of major feats is Gladiator. This alien powerhouse is similar to Super in a lot of the right areas and in some ways is even stronger than comic Superman. As far as feats, tanking a punch from Juggernaut then throwing him like a toy is pretty impressive. He also beat down Ronan easlily and seems to be the strongest single hero in his universe. The Purple Version of Superman has only lost to the Phoenix Force itself…a cosmic entity.
There is one Superman copy that may end up on this list soon… and that’s the Sentry. As of now, we’ve only briefly seen parts of him in some trailer shots so there aren’t any feats to go on, but if he’s anything like his comic counterpart, then he will end up close to the top of this ranking. We will update after “Thunderbolts” is released in May.
Think we got the list wrong? Tell us why in the comments below!
