Superman would destroy Hulk

This post is republished (and lightly edited) from Quora, answered originally by Ariel Williams.

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Ordinarily I would call this fight for Superman as eventually he would realize that Hulk just gets more powerful the angrier he gets and would back off until he calms down. That’s the only rational way to beat the Hulk under normal circumstances — you defeat his anger.

According to DC’s Pre-Crisis canon, Superman has incredible power for a Kryptonian. Superman is so powerful that in order to properly function he has to put in place mental blocks or limiters to his strength so that he is not a danger to everyone around him. According to Marvel canon, Hulk has nearly limitless power equal to or exceeding his anger. He gets angrier the more he is hurt and when he is losing. Hulk can recover from almost any injury, which again makes him angrier.

SUPERMAN BREAKDOWN

STRENGTHS: Can lift or manipulate between 66 quintillion and 400 quintillion tons.

+ Has moved the Earth around before.

+ After being supercharged by the sun, he was quoted as being able to lift 200 quintillion tons with just one arm and stated he thinks he could lift much more. We should give him the benefit of the doubt and say with both arms he should be able to lift 400 quintillion tons.

+ Can do the Infinite Mass Punch which is a punch at or near the speed of light causing the punch to impact with near infinite mass.

DURABILITY: Superman has survived numerous attacks in the past that are quoted as being of equal power to a supernova and has experienced some even more powerful attacks.

+ Can take a 10 octillion megaton yield of a relatively small supernova blast without being supercharged by the sun.

SPEED: Superman is capable of faster-than-light travel and can bend space-time around himself to go even faster. He can go so fast, he can leave our universe if he unleashes all of his barriers.

+ Batman has stated that Superman’s fastest recorded speed is 10, 563, 300, 000 mph (10.5 billion mph). That’s 15.75 times the speed of light.

+ He has been compared in speed to the Flash when Superman is going his fastest and Flash is not overexerting himself.

+ Batman also says that Superman can perceive things happening with Zeptosecond precision. That is one sextillionth of a second.

WEAKNESSES (Not including depowering ones):

– Respect for life.

– High moral standard.

– Must remove self-imposed limiters and blocks sequentially to access his full power.

(Superman reference:

HULK BREAKDOWN

STRENGTHS: Effectively limitless depending upon his emotional state. Starts out at roughly 100 tons of lifting capacity.

+ After some probing, the entity Beyonder once claimed that the Hulk’s potential strength had “no finite element inside.” —

+ The Hulk is also able to generate omnidirectional bursts of kinetic energy that completely destroy the planet he is standing on. — Incredible Hulks #634-635 (2011)

+ He can grow stronger from radiation. — “Planet Hulk Armageddon Part II” The Incredible Hulk v3, 105 (June 2007)