Hailing from Earth-23 and inspired by President Barack Obama (according to Grant Morrison in an interview with Daily Record,) this Superman (born Kalel) is one of the last Kryptonians alive. He pulls double duty as both a superhero and the President of the United States.
Calvin Ellis made his debut in Final Crisis #7 by Grant Morrison and Doug Mahnke, and from then on out, he’s only made a handful of appearances in the stories belonging to other characters. However, without ever starring in his own comic, there’s still enough information on Ellis to know about his powers, the ones he shares with Clark Kent, and the ones not even the original Superman has.
10 He Is An Expert At Boxing
While not an outright superpower, it is one of the few skills that Calvin Ellis has that separates him from Clark Kent. In the midst of Krypton’s destruction, young Kalel crash-landed onto the Ellis family’s doorstep, where they raised him to stand up for himself in their poor, urban neighborhood. This including teaching the newly christened Calvin Ellis how to box.
With super-strength, hand-to-hand combat has never been an essential skill for Superman, but if Clark Kent knew how to box, maybe he wouldn’t have gotten knocked out by Muhammad Ali.
9 He Has Advanced Technology That Can Bring People Back To Life
Again, not exactly a superpower, but an advantage that puts him just a hair above the original Man of Steel himself. Like the OG Man himself, Calvin Ellis retreats to his own Fortress of Solitude glossed with Kryptonian technology. Except, from the looks of it, the tech from Earth-23 Krypton is just a smidge more impressive.
The first sign of this is in the aftermath of Calvin defeating Super-Doomsday. Doomsday went on a quest to destroy every Superman from every universe and killed Clark Kent. However, Calvin Ellis was confident that he could bring Clark back to life using his Lazarus Revival down in his Fortress.
8 He Has Expert Leadership Skills
Maybe it simply comes from natural leading abilities, maybe it comes from his experience as the President of the United States of America, but Calvin Ellis has proven to have the skills, hyper-intellect, and characteristics that make for a natural-born leader, even more so than his super predecessor, Clark Kent.
Like Clark Kent, Calvin Ellis leads his own version of the Justice League in Earth-23, but beyond that, he also takes the helm as team leader on an even bigger project: the Justice Incarnate. This is a team comprised of at least one superhero from each universe. Meaning that out of the entire multiverse, Calvin Ellis was considered the best equipped to lead them all.
7 He Has A Longer Lifespan
This is the point where this list starts to cover more common powers that both Calvin Ellis and Clark Kent share. Although, this is a power that even diehard Superman fans forget that Clark Kent has to begin with.
This power speaks to the longevity of Superman’s lifespan, which is much longer than the average lifespan of a regular human. For a Kryptonian like Calvin Ellis, as long as he continues to live under the yellow sun that sustains his body, he will remain in his prime for several decades.
6 He Has Solar Energy Absorption
Speaking of the yellow sun, the yellow sun plays a huge part in Calvin Ellis and other Kryptonians having powers, to begin with. On Krypton, Kryptonians are pretty normal with little to no powers to speak of. In fact, they’re really just a smidge above humans as far as ordinary goes, but the Earth’s yellow sun makes them superhuman in how their bodies absorb its solar energy.
And by the same sword, those powers go away when Ellis is out of a yellow sun’s range.
5 He Has Infrared Vision
Everyone knows that Superman traditionally has heat ray vision, X-ray vision, and even the less exciting telescopic and microscopic vision. Naturally, Calvin Ellis shares those same powers, but one power of sight that often goes overlooked among a Kryptonian’s powers is infrared vision.
Infrared vision refers to a Kryptonian’s ability to see things in the dark, almost using their eyes like a CSI-level glow in the dark night light. On paper, it sounds like another one of those less exciting powers, but actually, it can prove to be pretty useful in fights shrouded in total darkness.
4 He Has Superhuman Stamina
For fans who ever read or watched a long, high scale Superman fight and noticed or wondered why and how Superman never breaks a sweat, it is because a Kryptonian’s level of stamina is completely superhuman.
A Kryptonian like Calvin Ellis or Clark Kent can commit to strenuous physical activity – ranging from working out, lifting tall buildings, or flat out fighting – for long periods of time with little struggle involved or ever getting tired. The yellow sun, again, plays a strong factor here. The only thing that could exhaust a Kryptonian under these conditions is the psychological and physiological needs to eat, drink, and sleep. Still, a Kryptonian lasts longer than the average human.
3 He Is Invulnerable Against Disease
When invulnerability is brought up as a strength for Superman or Kryptonians in general, most people think about how they are invulnerable from harmful violence (i.e. bullets bouncing off of their skin, not being burned by fire, etc). However, invulnerability for Kryptonians means something far greater than some fans comprehend.
For a Kryptonian, invulnerability means that they are less likely to come in contact with or become inflicted by diseases. It also means that Calvin Ellis is safe from exposure to toxins and polluted air as well.
2 He Has Superhuman Agility And Reflexes
Everyone knows about Kryptonians and their super speed, judging by how fast they can go from place to place in the span of a few seconds, if not faster. With those quick running skills also come even quicker reflexes and agility.
Think that one scene in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man when Peter Parker caught Mary-Jane, and all of her food into that tray. Kryptonians have that level of quick reflexes. Not to mention, it is often overlooked and forgotten how Kryptonian bodies can be just as agile as a Spider-Man gliding through the air.
1 He Has Super-Breath (But In Reverse)
Super-Breath is another common superpower shared among Kryptonians and what general audiences ranging from casual to hardcore fans should all be familiar with by now. However, it is often forgotten just what Super-Breath can do.
The obvious idea behind it is that it can intensely blow things away like gusts of wind or even freeze things at cold temperatures, but Kryptonians can also use Super-Breath in reverse by intensely sucking things deeply into their lungs at inhuman levels of proficiency. Both Calvin Ellis and Clark Kent can do this.
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