What is Superman’s IQ?
DC lists nine Superman powers and none is a mind; its own columnist calls super intelligence among his least demonstrated.
No comic, film or DC page we could read gives Superman an IQ, and no Superman IQ figure circulates on any page we could open. This site’s estimated IQ level for Superman as written, across the main DC comics continuity and the main films, is 150–175, below Batman’s 175–195.
Superman’s estimated IQ
- DC’s own writer says the intellect is written but rarely shown: Alex Jaffe (dc.com, November 11, 2021) calls “Super intelligence” among the least demonstrated of Superman’s powers, then lists a Silver Age “super-memory” of his own birth, Pre-Crisis stories of him continuing Jor-El’s work as a scientist and inventor, and constant tinkering with projects in the Fortress of Solitude.
- The high-water mark is Grant Morrison’s Superman: Jaffe credits Morrison’s stories with Superman absorbing a medical library’s worth of text and doing interstellar calculations faster than a supercomputer, and in All-Star Superman (Morrison and Frank Quitely, twelve issues, November 2005 to October 2008) Wikipedia’s summary has him prepare a liquefied-DNA formula that gives Lois Lane his powers for 24 hours.
- The Fortress of Solitude is the standing evidence of a builder: Wikipedia says it holds “a laboratory for science experiments,” CBR (Cat Wyatt, April 22, 2025) says its robots are ones “Superman built himself,” and ScreenRant (Byrd, February 9, 2017) argues the best case for his intelligence is the resources available to him, saying the Fortress holds nearly all knowledge in the known universe.
- The ceiling is written in too: dc.com’s Superman page lists nine powers (super strength, flight, invulnerability, super speed, heat vision, freeze breath, x-ray vision, superhuman hearing, healing factor) and none is intellect, while its Batman page lists “brilliant deductive skill” and its Lex Luthor page lists “genius-level intellect.”
- Rankings that do compare minds put him in the middle or lower down: fourth of ten Justice League members for CBR (2025) and 14th of 15 on comicbasics.com’s combined Marvel and DC list (Joel Scott, June 29, 2025), where Batman is fourth.
This Superman IQ estimate rates a portrayal, not a person: DC writes his mind up when a story wants it (the Silver Age, Morrison) and leaves it out when strength is the point, so 150–175 is a judgment between those eras, not a score. Where a story gives him literal super-intelligence, no IQ scale applies at all, and other versions of the character differ.
- First appearance
- Action Comics #1, cover-dated June 1938 (published April 18, 1938 per Wikipedia)
- Created by
- Jerry Siegel (writer) and Joe Shuster (artist)
- Names
- Kal-El (born on Krypton) and Clark Kent, per dc.com
- Day job
- Journalist at the Daily Planet in Metropolis (the earliest stories use the Daily Star)
- Base
- Fortress of Solitude, shown as a cave in Action Comics #241 (1958)
- Official powers (dc.com)
- Nine listed: strength, flight, invulnerability, speed, heat vision, freeze breath, x-ray vision, hearing, healing factor; intellect is not among them
- Film portrayals
- Christopher Reeve (1978), Henry Cavill (2013), David Corenswet (2025)
- Canonical IQ
- None published; no figure on any page we could open
What an IQ of 150–175 actually means
Set the claim aside for a moment. If someone genuinely scored in this range, here is what that would represent.
| Score range | Classification | Share of people | What it indicates |
|---|---|---|---|
| 85 – 114 | Average | ~68% | The range most people fall into. |
| 115 – 129 | Above average | ~13.6% | Roughly one person in seven. |
| 130 – 144 | Gifted | ~2% | The threshold most high-IQ societies use. |
| Above 144 | Highly gifted | ~0.1% | Figures above this range are extrapolated from the curve rather than measured. |
Percentages are approximate and describe a normal distribution. The same number means different things on tests with different standard deviations.
Thirty questions gives you a measured position on this exact scale — your score, your percentile and the ability breakdown behind it.
Find out in 30 minutes →Who Superman is
Superman is a DC Comics character created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, who met in 1932 at Glenville High School in Cleveland. His first appearance, Action Comics #1, is cover-dated June 1938 and, per Wikipedia, was published on April 18, 1938; dc.com lists it as “ACTION COMICS #1 (1938)” and gives his names as Clark Kent and Kal-El. Siegel’s January 1933 short story “The Reign of the Super-Man” had a different hero: a villain whose mind-reading, mind-control and clairvoyance came from a scientist’s experimental drug. In the 1938 version the baby is sent to Earth by his scientist father from a planet about to die; Wikipedia gives the later standard form, in which Kal-El is born on Krypton to Jor-El and Lara and raised in Smallville, Kansas by Jonathan and Martha Kent. As Clark Kent he is a journalist in Metropolis. The earliest stories placed him at the Daily Star and the second episode of the radio serial moved him to the Daily Planet; comics of the early 1970s made him a television journalist, and the 1978 film returned him to newspaper work.
Is Superman smart? The stories say yes more often than they show it. Editor Mort Weisinger, who ran the Superman books from 1941 to 1970, built the Silver Age mythology, and Wikipedia lists the Fortress of Solitude, the Phantom Zone and alternate kryptonites among its inventions; Action Comics #241 (1958) shows the Fortress as a cave in a mountain. John Byrne’s The Man of Steel (1986), written after Crisis on Infinite Earths, rewrote the mythos and again reduced Superman’s powers. The New 52 relaunch of Action Comics went on sale on September 7, 2011 under writer Grant Morrison and artist Rags Morales. Morrison’s earlier All-Star Superman (with Frank Quitely, twelve issues, November 2005 to October 2008) follows a Superman who learns he is dying of overexposure to the sun, gives Lois Lane a liquefied-DNA formula that grants her his powers for 24 hours and completes the “Twelve Labors of Superman”; Time’s Lev Grossman ranked it third in his top 10 graphic novels of 2007, and IGN ranked it first among its top 25 Superman stories, per Wikipedia.
Superman’s IQ in the movies is as unstated as it is in the comics, and the films lean on inherited knowledge more than on problem-solving. In Superman (1978; directed by Richard Donner, with Christopher Reeve in the title role; released in the United States on December 15, 1978) a Fortress of Solitude rises from the Arctic ice and Jor-El’s hologram trains the teenage Clark over twelve years. In Man of Steel (2013; Zack Snyder, with Henry Cavill; released June 14, 2013) Clark learns about his origins from a Kryptonian scout ship’s artificial intelligence modeled after Jor-El. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (March 25, 2016) was the first live-action film to feature Batman and Superman together, and Lex Luthor manipulates Batman into a preemptive battle with Superman. In James Gunn’s Superman (July 11, 2025; David Corenswet in the role) the Fortress of Solitude stands in Antarctica with robots inside it, and Gunn’s follow-up Man of Tomorrow (scheduled for July 9, 2027) has Superman and Luthor reluctantly team up against the superintelligent Brainiac, whom Gunn contrasts with Superman as “what happens when intelligence loses all connection to humanity.” ScreenRant’s Tristan Benns argued on December 6, 2021 that modern adaptations “far too frequently dumb Superman down.” Other versions, including Smallville (2001–2011) and the animated series, differ; this page rates the main DC comics continuity plus the main film versions.
Against the fictional peers on this site, 150–175 puts Superman below Batman (175–195), Tony Stark (175–195), Lex Luthor (180–200) and Reed Richards (190–210). The gap follows DC’s own wording: its pages give Batman and Luthor a mind as a headline power and give Superman none, and its columnist rates his intelligence among the least demonstrated. The floor of 150 reflects how the record writes him when it does show his mind, as a scientist-inventor and Fortress builder at what we would call a genius IQ level, since an IQ of 150 is already rarer than 1 in 2,000 on a normal curve. This page rates the fictional character’s written intellect only; the actors named above are credited for casting, not rated.
By Elora Mercer, Celebrity Research WriterFigures checked by Leon Falkner, Data & Research AnalystReviewed by Aarav Vardhan, Editor-in-Chief · Last reviewed August 2026
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Superman: the documented record
The estimate above rests on this record. Every entry here is a matter of public fact, which is more than can be said for the number itself.
- 1938Action Comics #1 (cover-dated June 1938, published April 18) introduces Superman; Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.
- 1958Action Comics #241 shows the Fortress of Solitude as a cave in a mountain; Wikipedia says it holds a laboratory for science experiments.
- 1978Superman, directed by Richard Donner with Christopher Reeve, opens in the United States on December 15; Jor-El’s hologram trains Clark in the Fortress over twelve years.
- 1986John Byrne’s The Man of Steel reboots the mythos and reduces his powers; Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns has Batman beat him with his inventions and Oliver Queen’s kryptonite-tipped arrow.
- 2000JLA #43–46, Tower of Babel (from July 2000, Mark Waid): the plans Batman kept include a red kryptonite made to incapacitate Superman without killing him.
- 2005–2008All-Star Superman (Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely), twelve issues, November 2005 to October 2008.
- 2011The New 52 Action Comics #1 goes on sale September 7 under Grant Morrison and Rags Morales.
- 2013–2016Man of Steel (June 14, 2013; Zack Snyder, Henry Cavill) and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (March 25, 2016).
- 2021Alex Jaffe’s dc.com column “How Smart is Superman?” (November 11) calls “Super intelligence” among his least demonstrated powers.
- 2025–2027CBR ranks Superman fourth of ten Justice League minds (April 22, 2025); James Gunn’s Superman (July 11, 2025); Man of Tomorrow is scheduled for July 9, 2027.
Why no figure circulates
Following a claim back to its first appearance is the part almost nobody does — and it is what most people are actually asking.
Superman’s IQ is not a number that DC has published, and no figure for him turned up on any page we could open. dc.com’s Superman page lists his powers as super strength, flight, invulnerability, super speed, heat vision, freeze breath, x-ray vision, superhuman hearing and a healing factor, and says nothing about his mind; its Batman page calls Bruce Wayne “a brilliant tactician and a genius-level forensic scientist,” and its Lex Luthor page says “He’s the most intelligent man on Earth.” Wikipedia’s Superman article splits on the point: the infobox lists “Genius level intellect” among his abilities with no citation, while the powers section never mentions intelligence and the article never uses the word IQ. For how numbers attach themselves to characters, see where celebrity IQ numbers come from.
No Superman IQ level appears in the rankings we could read. comicbasics.com’s “The 15 Smartest Superheroes in Marvel & DC Comics (Ranked)” (Joel Scott, June 29, 2025) ranks him 14th, credits his Kryptonian physiology with “incredibly advanced brain structure” and the capacity to “process information much faster” than a human, and prints stated IQs for Bruce Banner (160) and Spider-Man (250), but none for him. CBR (Cat Wyatt, April 22, 2025) ranks him fourth of ten Justice League minds, and sociosite.net’s Batman page says only that Superman is less smart than Batman and so “probably somewhere in that range.” Any Superman IQ estimate you meet online is therefore a ranking position or a guess, not a number with a test or an issue behind it.
Superman’s IQ in the comics is a question of what the stories show, and DC’s own column on it is blunt. Alex Jaffe, writing on dc.com (November 11, 2021), calls “Super intelligence” among the least demonstrated of Superman’s powers and traces what exists: a Silver Age “super-memory” that let him recall his own birth and the destruction of Krypton, Pre-Crisis stories of him continuing Jor-El’s work as a scientist and inventor, and Grant Morrison’s Superman absorbing a medical library and running interstellar calculations faster than a supercomputer. Those are the Superman IQ feats that matter for an estimate. Action Comics #1 (1938) already calls Kryptonians a species “millions of years advanced of our own,” though Wikipedia ties that line to his strength, and Jaffe admits he does not much like it when Superman can “super-think everyone.” A literal super-brain cannot be put on an IQ scale at all; the IQ ceiling effect explains why no test can score it.
The Superman IQ vs Batman question is about intellect against power, and the record is specific on both sides. dc.com credits Batman with “a brilliant tactician and a genius-level forensic scientist,” lists “brilliant deductive skill” among his powers and says he has “devised various fail-safes and plans for any number of potential doomsday scenarios.” The stories show those plans aimed at Superman: in JLA: Tower of Babel (JLA #43–46, from July 2000, Mark Waid) the plans Batman kept on his allies include a red kryptonite he made to incapacitate Superman without killing him, and in Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns (1986) Batman fights Superman with his inventions until Oliver Queen’s kryptonite-tipped arrow weakens him. Superman’s side is thinner. CBR says that in Flash #209 the Flash lets slip that he believes Superman may be more intelligent than Batman, and credits him with building the Fortress of Solitude’s robots himself. Neither side has a number.
How we read a number →Superman page: nine powers (super strength, flight, invulnerability, super speed, heat vision, freeze breath, x-ray vision, superhuman hearing, healing factor), none an intellect; first appearance “ACTION COMICS #1 (1938)”; alias “Clark Kent, Kal-El.” Batman page: “a brilliant tactician and a genius-level forensic scientist,” “brilliant deductive skill,” doomsday plans. Luthor page: “He’s the most intelligent man on Earth,” power “genius-level intellect.” Jaffe: “Super intelligence” among the least demonstrated powers; Silver Age “super-memory”; Pre-Crisis scientist-inventor and Fortress tinkering; Morrison’s medical library, supercomputer-speed calculations and miniature universe. No IQ on any of these.
Label “Superman,” description “superhero appearing in DC Comics publications”; creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster; instance of comics character and Kryptonian; part of the DC Universe. Confirms the entity is the character, not a film or a franchise.
Siegel and Shuster (met 1932, Glenville High School); “The Reign of the Super-Man” (January 1933); Action Comics #1 cover-dated June 1938, published April 18, 1938; Kal-El, Jor-El, Lara, Smallville, Metropolis; Daily Star then Daily Planet; infobox “Genius level intellect” (uncited); powers section silent on intelligence; Kryptonians “millions of years advanced of our own”; Weisinger 1941–1970 and the Fortress; Action Comics #241 (1958); Byrne’s The Man of Steel (1986); New 52 Action Comics (Morrison and Morales, on sale September 7, 2011); All-Star Superman (November 2005 to October 2008; Grossman and IGN rankings; liquefied-DNA formula for Lois Lane). The word IQ does not appear in the Superman article.
Tower of Babel: JLA #43–46 from July 2000, written by Mark Waid; Batman’s hidden plans on his allies; red kryptonite made to incapacitate Superman without killing him. The Dark Knight Returns: 1986 four-issue miniseries by Frank Miller; Batman fights Superman with technological inventions and Oliver Queen’s kryptonite-tipped arrow weakens Superman.
Release dates (December 15, 1978; June 14, 2013; March 25, 2016; July 11, 2025; scheduled July 9, 2027), directors and lead actors (Richard Donner and Christopher Reeve; Zack Snyder and Henry Cavill; James Gunn and David Corenswet), Jor-El’s hologram training Clark over twelve years, the Jor-El-modeled scout-ship AI, Luthor manipulating Batman, the Fortress in Antarctica with robots, Brainiac as the “superintelligent” antagonist of Man of Tomorrow and Gunn’s contrast quote. No IQ figure in any.
Ranks Superman 4 of 10 under “Superman Hides His Intelligence,” Batman 1; says the Fortress robots were “built himself” by Superman and that in Flash #209 the Flash lets slip he believes Superman may be more intelligent than Batman. No Superman IQ number.
Byrd: the Fortress “contains nearly all knowledge in the known universe”; the best argument for his intelligence is the resources he has; among the most intelligent League members. Benns: “a super-genius whose brain really does match his well-established brawn”; Action Comics #12 (Morrison, CAFU, Brad Walker); adaptations “far too frequently dumb Superman down.” No IQ number in either.
comicbasics.com: Superman 14 of 15 (Batman 4, Reed Richards 1); “incredibly advanced brain structure” and faster information processing; IQs given for Banner (160), Spider-Man (250) and Barry Allen (130–160), none for Superman. sociosite.net (a Batman page): Superman less smart than Batman, so “probably somewhere in that range”; no number.
Checked: dc.com’s Superman page, Wikipedia’s Superman article, DC’s Jaffe column, CBR, ScreenRant, comicbasics.com and the others above. None states an IQ for Superman.
The sources behind our estimate
The figures that circulate for Superman, what we were able to confirm, and where the two diverge.
No page we could open prints an IQ for Superman. comicbasics.com’s “The 15 Smartest Superheroes in Marvel & DC Comics (Ranked)” (Joel Scott, June 29, 2025) gives IQs for other characters (Bruce Banner “stated to be 160,” Spider-Man “stated to be 250,” Barry Allen estimated between 130 and 160) and none for Superman, whom it ranks 14th. sociosite.net’s Batman page says only that Superman is less smart than Batman and so “probably somewhere in that range,” with no number of its own.
We checked dc.com’s Superman page, Wikipedia’s Superman article (infobox and body), DC’s “How Smart is Superman?” column, CBR, two ScreenRant pieces and comicbasics.com: none states an IQ for Superman. The nearest thing to a verdict is qualitative. Wikipedia’s infobox lists “Genius level intellect” with no citation, ScreenRant’s Tristan Benns (December 6, 2021) calls him “a super-genius whose brain really does match his well-established brawn,” and DC’s own columnist calls the same trait one of his least demonstrated powers. No number turned up in any source named here.
With no circulating figure there is nothing above the range to audit, so the spread is the range itself: 25 points that end where Batman’s 175–195 begins. On the usual scale (mean 100, standard deviation 15), 150 is 3.3 standard deviations above average, about 1 in 2,300 on a normal curve, and 175 is 5.0, about 1 in 3.5 million. Nothing in the work asks for more, and the literal super-brain of some Silver Age stories cannot be put on this scale.
Want a number that does hold up? Every figure on this page is somebody’s claim. Take the 30-question test and get a percentile you can check rather than a figure you have to trust.
Superman — frequently asked
What is Superman’s IQ?
Superman has no IQ that DC has published: no comic, film or DC page we could read gives Clark Kent or Kal-El a number, and this site’s Superman IQ estimate for the character as written is 150–175. DC’s own Superman page lists nine powers and none of them is intellect.
What is Superman’s IQ in the comics?
No comic we could read states one. DC columnist Alex Jaffe (dc.com, 2021) calls “Super intelligence” among the least demonstrated of Superman’s powers, citing a Silver Age “super-memory,” Pre-Crisis scientist-inventor stories and Grant Morrison’s medical-library and supercomputer-speed feats. This site rates the comics Superman at 150–175.
Is Superman smart?
As written, yes, though writers show it less often than his strength. CBR’s 2025 ranking of Justice League minds puts him fourth of ten under the heading “Superman Hides His Intelligence,” while comicbasics.com’s 2025 list of Marvel and DC minds puts him 14th of 15. No source gives a number.
Superman IQ vs Batman: who is smarter?
No source settles it. DC’s Batman page calls Bruce Wayne “a brilliant tactician and a genius-level forensic scientist,” while its Superman page lists no intellect. CBR says the Flash suggests in Flash #209 that Superman may be the smarter of the two. This site rates Superman at 150–175 and Batman at 175–195.
What are Superman’s IQ feats?
They are feats of writing, not test results: a Silver Age “super-memory” of his own birth, Pre-Crisis tinkering as a scientist-inventor in the Fortress of Solitude, and in Grant Morrison’s stories reading a medical library and calculating faster than a supercomputer. In All-Star Superman (2005–2008) he makes a formula that gives Lois Lane his powers for 24 hours.
What is Superman’s IQ in the movies?
No film states one. In Superman (1978) Jor-El’s hologram trains Clark over twelve years; in Man of Steel (2013) he learns from a scout ship’s artificial intelligence modeled after Jor-El; ScreenRant argued in 2021 that adaptations “far too frequently dumb Superman down.”
Did Superman ever take an IQ test?
Not in any comic, film or show we could find. He is a fictional character, so a test exists only if a writer puts one on the page, and no source we checked shows one. Fan rankings that do print IQs, such as comicbasics.com’s, give none for him.
How does Superman’s estimated IQ compare with Lex Luthor’s?
This site rates Superman at 150–175 and Lex Luthor at 180–200, both character-analysis estimates. DC’s own Luthor page lists “genius-level intellect” as a power and calls him “the most intelligent man on Earth”; its Superman page lists no intellect. Both ranges describe how the stories write the characters, not a score.
How does my IQ compare with Superman?
You can find out in about fifteen minutes. The IQ Metrics assessment is 30 questions, scored on the same 100-mean scale used throughout this page, so your result and the estimate above are at least expressed in the same units — one measured, one inferred. Once you have a number, the leaderboard shows where it would sit, and how we score and norm it explains the benchmarking.
Where does this estimate come from?
From the documented record rather than a test — the method is named above and set out in full under how we read a number. Compare it against the other fictional profiles, starting with Sherlock Holmes.
- Take the 30-question IQ test — get a measured score and percentile of your own
- Average IQ by country — how the scale behaves across populations
- How IQ Metrics scores its assessment — the method behind our own number
- More on how IQ testing works — reliability, error and what a score can and cannot say
- More fictional profiles — same field, same method
More fictional
Photograph of actor Christian Bale by Harald Krichel (Berlinale, February 11, 2019), CC BY-SA 4.0. Batman is a character created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger and published by DC Comics; this is a photograph of the actor who played the role in the 2005–2012 film trilogy, not of the character. Background removed for the portrait above. · Photograph of actor Nicholas Hoult by Harald Krichel (81st Venice International Film Festival, August 2024), CC BY-SA 4.0. Lex Luthor is a character created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, portrayed by Hoult in Superman (2025). Background removed for the portrait above. · Photograph of a cosplayer dressed as Spider-Man by Super Festivals (Florida Supercon, July 5, 2013), CC BY 2.0. Spider-Man is a character created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko for Marvel Comics; this is a photograph of a cosplayer, not an image of the character. Cropped and with background removed for the portrait above.
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