Imagine being a reverse Superman where you're really weak and struggle to keep up with your peers for your whole life until you learn that you're actually just from a race of aliens with comparatively shit body strength. This is the premise of Tarzan

Superman introducing Battinson Bruce to his parents though.

Ma and Pa Kent open the door, ready to meet their boy’s new bf, but it’s only Clark on the porch.

Clark: :D

Ma: Hi, honey. Where is your boy?

And then, peeking around the door frame, is Bruce in a suit and long wool coat, gaunt, squinting against the sun.

Bruce: hi it’s nice to meet you I’m Bruce

Pa: Oh, you didn’t have to get all dressed up to meet us!

Bruce: Mybutlermademe

Ma: Butler? Mercy, Clark, where did you find this one?

—

Clark disappears into the kitchen to help Ma with dinner, leaving Bruce and Pa sitting in the front room watching a baseball game. Bruce is sitting in an armchair, stiff as a board, anxiety level 100.

Pa: So Clark tells me you do the same sort of thing he does? Swoop around and help folks and such?

Bruce, blurting out the first thing that comes to mind: I can’t fly.

Pa: Wh—Okay?

Bruce: I am a bat but I can’t fly. Not without my Wingsuit.

Pa:…

Bruce, realizing what he just said: never mind

Pa, turning back to the tv: So how about them Yankees?

—

Ma: And this is our chicken coop. It’s a little musty, but Clark comes by to help tidy up once a week.

Bruce: *observing*

Ma: There’s this got-dang coyote—

Bruce, pointing at the corner: The coyote that’s been eating your chickens is burrowing under there. Reinforce it.

Ma:…I love you.

—

Pa: So what’s it like in Gotham?

Bruce, hunching over: The city is overrun with crime. Darkness lurks in every corner. We have an average twelve days of sun a year. Recently there has been a noxious cloud of gas hanging over the city center. I perch myself on my tower to observe. I become part of the building. I am a gargoyle.

Pa:…

Pa: Do you like living there?

Bruce, whispering fiercely: iloveit

—

Clark, flying Bruce back home: My parents love you.

Bruce: okay

Clark: They’re convinced you’re a cryptid that’s latched onto my soul, though.

LOVE 1940’s era Superman before he gets all his major villains or character arcs and basically just skips around metropolis fighting mobs and con men because he doesn’t have lex luthor or anyone rly as a recurring nemesis and he can’t fly or anything and they don’t quite have him as a character fully figured out yet so they just write shit like this

#men will eat a knife and go mmmm! mm mmm yummy! hehehe scrumptious! teehee mmm yummy yummy in my tummy!

Conan O'Brien is shocked.

Clark never felt pain until after he became Superman.

General Zod: (punches Clark in the face)

Superman: (now understanding the concept of pain) Oh- This sucks ass.

Ma Kent: it’s- well… it’s like feeling sad but in your body.

10YO Clark: That doesn’t make any sense.

(Flashforward)

Superman: (dodging a evil alien) 😲 ohhhhh that’s what she meant.

In all seriousness he should have the worst pain tolerance of the entire JL

Batman, with six broken bones, a cracked collarbone, and internal bleeding: I can still fight.

Superman, with one bruise: Tell Lois… that I love her

I can’t chose my favorite fjdjfjdjd

Clois & smiling (requested by anonymous)

I love this, though, because my favorite thing about Superman is he isn’t Batman. I love Batman too, but Superman isn’t a dude who decided to live his life in pursuit of a vendetta against society when he was eight and then just did nothing for the next two decades but get super jacked, become the world’s greatest detective, and memorize every strategy used by every winner in every field of competition in history. Superman is a very good-hearted person who knows how to bale hay, use AP Stylebook, and break meteors into manageable bite-sized pieces by hitting them real hard. And I’m not saying Superman isn’t smart. He’s a bright guy, he’s just not like, one of the celebrated geniuses of the DC Universe. The best thing about Superman is he is basically a normal dude who happens to be orders of magnitude stronger than anyone else. Normal dudes have brain farts. Normal dudes are presented with a life-or-death situation they have less than four seconds to resolve and make a decision that is not optimal. Normal dudes aren’t typically asked to rescue a child from a 10,000 ton machine bearing down on him at 85mph, but if they were, they would probably sometimes panic a little and do dumb shit like ruin a train when they could have just whisked the child to safety.

I think sometimes Superman makes the wrong decision, not necessarily to the result of extreme catastrophe, but something like this, where everyone is standing around clapping and cheering and the kid’s parents are weeping in gratitude and they want to pose for a picture for the 6 o’ clock news with Superman and the conductor, and in the crowd someone is like “Why didn’t he fly the kid out of the way?” and rather than rolling with the fact that the emperor is naked his friend just says “Shut up, Drew, it’s Superman.”

And then, because I also love Batman for very different reasons, I imagine that later on the same day Bruce Wayne gets a phone call and Clark Kent is like “Hey, Wayne, I uh, need a favor.”

“Do you now.”

“Yeah, I, uh, kind of owe the Union Pacific Railroad $60,000.”

“Oh, and why’s that?”

“Come on, don’t do this to me. It was all over the news.”

“I’m prepared to write you a no-strings-attached check for the full amount on the condition that you explain your entire thought process from beginning to end.”

Anyway, that’s why I like Superman.

I think this is very accurate. One time a tree fell on me in the forest and while it would have made more sense to simply jump to the side and avoid it my idiot brain went through the fight-or-flight options and apparently chose fight, so I reached out my hand and caught the tree, then dropped it on the ground beside me. Ended up fracturing my wrist and wondering why the fuck my brain thought that was the best option for survival. I don’t think people are good at really weighing the optimal choices in moments of crisis. 

Bruce: “New Justice League policy. I am willing to pay for whatever damages you guys do in the name of justice and saving lives, but you have to write up a report detailing how the damage occured, including your thought process. Every once in a while, I will complie them into a presentation that we will go through as a whole to determine how you could have mitigated the collateral damage.”

Clark: “This is going to be a ‘name and shame’ type of thing, isn’t it?”

Bruce, lying through his teeth: “Of course not, don’t be ridiculous. This is to improve ourselves.”

The ones who admit “I don’t know what happened here” get a pass on shaming but they still get the alternative suggestions list

And on nights when he really needs a break, Bruce pulls those presentations out, watches the video, and laughs his tits off.

Comic - Action Comics #1040 Cover

Art by J. Totino Tedesco