DC Arcs and Superman's Progression through it

 

With the recent resurgence in interest in Superman's scaling due in part to the upcoming Death Battle, I thought this would be a good opportunity to explain what I consider to be the "arcs of DC Comics and how strong/fast Superman is in each. This will include both with and without retroactive scaling, for instance, Superman gets retroactive scaling to all the feats he did as Superboy, even if they were published after that era.

The Golden Age:

The first period of DC Comics going from 1938 with Superman's first appearance to... it's arguable but for my purposes, I use the date 1951 with the last appearance of the Golden Age Flash, relevant especially as the first issue of the Silver Age Flash often considered being the start of the Silver Age. 

Arc 1: Pre-War Period: 1938-1941:

This is the first period of DC Comics, starting with the first appearance of Superman in April of 1938, to the United States entering the second World War in December of 1941, which had an immense and immediate impact on the comics industry. This would include feats up to Superman 13 and Action Comics 43, as well as various other appearances of Superman in World's Finest and the New York World's Fair Comics.

Without retroactive scaling, Superman at this point would be roughly city to island level as Superman was able to lift Luthor's floating city

easily withstands a volcanic eruption that blows a mountain top off

and knocks off the top part of a mountain into a valley

In terms of speed, Superman DOES have lightspeed narration caption statements

On the one hand, I will point out that this was a figure of speech sometimes used at the time, Batman for instance also has a similar statement 

However also for consideration I will say Superman has a lot of them, much moreso and in fact probably has the second highest amount of any superhero of the time period after only the Flash so it's your prerogative if you want to take it or lightning-timing as literal statements. 

If you don't take such statements seriously, Superman's best feats are quickly but in an unknown time frame traveling to other countries or continents of his own speed, outpacing bullet

 and running a mile in a second

which would all place him at supersonic or higher.

Arc 2: War Period: 1941-1945

This period lasted from the United States entering the Second World War in December 1941, to the end of the war in September 1945. The War massively impacted comics at the time as might be expected. This includes feats up to Action Comics 88 and Superman 36. 

Without retroacting scaling, Superman doesn't get any feats outside the upper bounds of his Pre-War Period, though does get more power feats on the same level, as well as more a more clear speed feat.

Superman was able to split a mountain in half

destroyed a meteor capable of destroying half of Metropolis

and whirled in a circle with enough force and speed to divert a large thunderstorm, altering the wind direction over a section of the country, before intercepting a lightning bolt with speeds the narration caption calls faster than light.

Arc 3: Post-War Period: 1945-1951:

After the war, Superhero Comics began to fade out of fashion with a lot of Golden Age Titles eventually getting canceled. This period covers everything from the end of the Second World War in September 1945 to the last appearance of the Golden Age Flash and the rest of the Justice Society in March 1951. This covers up to Action Comics 154 and Superman 69.

Superman's feats increase MASSIVELY in this period, especially closer to the end of it. He has several moon to planet level feats, but even more impressive he has two stellar tier feats being unharmed by an explosion that rocked the Solar System

He also flew into the interstellar void and crashed moons together to create a new star before pushing a planet into orbit around it

This Superman not only clearly has feats massively faster than light such as casually traveling 5 billion miles in 5 seconds but could break the time barrier and travel backwards in time via his speed

Late into this period, Superman fights three Kryptonian Criminals who upon reaching the Earth acquire powers equal to Superman's own.

One can use this to say that Golden Age Superman always had this level of power since the beginning of the Golden Age since Kryptonian Adults new to Earth immediately gain this level of power.

Arc 4: Atomic/Interregnum Period: 1951-1956

The Period between the Golden and Silver Ages where few comic characters survived. The only DC characters to be continually published through the period were Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. It's not entirely clear when the comics transitioned from Earth-2 Superman to Earth-1 Superman though these days it doesn't really matter.

Superman does not really get stronger in this period but does have a few more feats supporting his stats. He was able to blow out a star with his super-breath

and has more feats of breaking the time barrier

The Silver Age:

The Silver Age is a roughly 15-year period of DC comics following the interregnum going from about 1956 to 1971 which I would divide into three five-year periods. This period is known for a more childish approach to storytelling due to the Comics Code influence, a greater focus on science-fiction, and the establishment of the mainline versions of all the main Justice League characters.

Arc 5: Early Silver Age: 1956-1961: 

With the reinvention of the characters and the implementation of the comics code, the Silver Age was an age of moral black and whiteness, wacky sci-fi adventures, and an increasing power scale. This period lasted from the introduction of the Silver Age Flash in October 1956 to The Flash of Two Worlds story in September 1961. 

Late in this arc Silver Age Superman has one of the most famous pre-crisis feats of all, instantly flying to another universe and sneezing away a Star System

Assuming you think Superman's physical strength to sneezing strength ratio is comparable to a human, likely a lowball if anything, Superman is likely thousands of times stronger than this feat, making it the strongest feat he makes in not just the period but arguably the entire Silver Age.

In terms of speed, not only could Superman travel to other universes in a second as shown above, but he could travel backwards in time even as a child

Superman's feats don't really get particularly stronger, though he will get some retroactive scaling back to this period.

Arc 6: Mid Silver Age: 1961-1966

This period begins with the Flash of Two Worlds story in September 1961 where the Golden and Silver Age Flashes meet for the first time, introducing the concept of the Multiverse to widestream public consciousness and beginning a succession of crossover events across DC, this is where DC characters and crossovers between them start becoming much more common, 1 year after the introduction of the Justice League in 1960. Notably, this is also where DC's longstanding rival Marvel Comics begins.

During this period the Sun-Eaters are introduced. Superboy, Superman's younger self, is weaker then them but gets a feat where he believes he might able to fight one with his Heat Vision and one relies on using its weakness against him.

which suggests he might be in the same range as power as one. This is notable as Sun-Eaters are stated numerous times even during this period to swallow whole galaxies

This would retroactively scale to the Silver Age Superman as an adult. 

Arc 7: Late Silver Age: 1966-1971

The move from the mid to late Silver Age is gradual and could be marked by several events. However in 1966 both the Adam West Batman series and The New Adventures of Superman were put on TV and in order to match the tone, the comics started to become noticeably campier, an overall directive to try and entice new readers. This also led to numerous writers joining DC from outside the company including from Marvel such as the legendary Jack Kirby who in 1970. This era is I think what people think of when they say "Pre-Crisis DC."

I don't believe Superman gets any notable power feats on the level of his prior ones this era, that said he does twice race the Fastest Man Alive, Barry Allen, the Flash. Unlike the charity races, these races were pretty clearly both trying their hardest with the winner being inconclusive, though neither had reached their true speeds as of yet. Still this does make the time barrier speeds even more consistent as Flash could also break the time barrier even early on into Pre-Crisis

Bronze Age: 

The Third Age of DC Comics is another 15 year period going from 1971-1986. Carmine Infantino became the new editorial dictator and the comics code had loosened up on the industry leading to DC taking a new direction. Realism became more common, both in the art and in the stories which focused more on Darker or more Society-based evils with the arc in DC really kicking off with the story "Snowbirds Don't Fly" in August 1971, where Green Arrow found that his sidekick Speedy had secretly been using drugs. This era for DC specifically is often referred to as the "Satellite Era", based on the JLA watchtower that was a major feature of many stories from its creation in 1969 up to 1984. The Power Levels also start going crazy.

Arc 8: Early Bronze Age: 1971-1976:

Jack Kirby created the New Gods, a race of deities fitting for a superhero universe in this time period and subsequently a race of beings whose powers were beyond that of even the Superman, forcing him to start to get stronger to catch up.

Early in this period, Superman fights the New God Magnar who hits him with the repulsion flow of a hundred galaxies, a force Superman thinks may actually be a threat to him

Suggesting at this point Superman had reached Multi-Galaxy Level. It's unclear if this would still scale back to his early Pre-Crisis self or if it would scale to the Earth-2 Superman who would stop getting showings of being equal to his Earth-1 self would not be explicitly shown to be weaker than him.

Arc 9: Mid Bronze Age: 1976-1981:

To better compete with Marvel, DC began producing a huge amount more comics starting in 1976 which eventually led to them having to cut back a few years later. 1976 also marked another change in the Editorial Director chair. as well as having the very first crossover between DC and Marvel with "Superman vs The Amazing Spider-Man" in March 1976. It also introduces Earth-S and the Fawcett Heroes, mostly notably Shazam/Captain Marvel to the DC Multiverse.

In this period Shazam fought the Invincible Man who had the power of the Big Bang, which Superman arguably scales too

It was implied in December of 1976 that Superman would be at least a threat to Shazam, though the results of any conflict were deliberately left inconclusive with Shazam using his magic word to purify Superman of the magical brainwashing he was under

This suggests Superman might be universal by this point.

There's also a possibly higher feat of power and/or speed depending on how you interpret it, which is Superman punching Sinestro to the Anti-Matter Universe

I'm not really sure how to assess this feat personally. 

Superboy in this period has a statement of being able to "destroy half a galaxy withot breaking a sweat." 

This would retroactively scale to Pre-Crisis Superman as an adult from the beginning of the Silver Age

Arc 10: Late Bronze Age: 1981-1986

The last arc of the Bronze Age involves the leadup to the Crisis on Infinite Earths, probably the single most important event in DC's history, starting the history of DC's main universal reboots and retcons, and the "crisis" meta-plot extending across DC Comics. 

Feats absolutely explode in this era. Superman withstood the Big Bang

One of Superman's enemies was powerful enough that he could become a living universe and embodiment of madness, which Superman and Supergirl sealed away with their Heat Vision

This universe threatening all the surrounding universes

A Supergirl villain introduced in this period, Blackstarr, can control every aspect of the cosmos and destroy it

and was able to reverse the Gravitational Flow of the Cosmos

All of this built up to the actual Crisis on Infinite Earths which introduces the Anti-Monitor, the threat to the multiverse. The Pre-Crisis Supergirl famously sacrifices herself to send back the Anti-Monitor during the Crisis, puncturing his armor

The Anti-Monitor is so powerful that even his opposite and equal, the Monitor with his dying energy was able to create a dimension capable of containing a few universes within

This strongly suggests Superman and Supergirl had reached the range of universal to macrocosmic in power.

This period also contains one of Superman's most famous speed feats. Superman was able to break the very bounds of infinity with his speed

By this point Superman could evenly fight Sivana with the Powers of Shazam

when Sivana had prior easily defeated the Golden Age Superman, attributing it to the fact that the Golden Age Superman ages and gets weaker over time. This is in contrast to the unaging Earth-1 Superman who gets stronger over time, though still claims that only Kryptonite could kill Earth-2 Superman

so make of that what you will. 

Post-Crisis:

The 25-year Post-Crisis Period is the most talked about period of DC Comics reflecting the end of the Crisis on Infinite Earths in March 1986 to the Flashpoint Event in August 2011. This Period has a massive uptick in major crossover events and more changes in continuity. The Crisis on Infinite Earths erased all but one Earth, which had an alternated timeline. However, some things remained unaltered by the history, with the Green Lantern Corps more than any other being unaffected by the Crisis, and many of the Batfamily events having happened. This led to Superman dropping dramatically in power. I divide the Post-Crisis into three periods based on two major continuity changing events: Zero Hour and Infinite Crisis.

Arc 11: Early Post-Crisis/Pre-Zero Hour Post-Crisis:

After the Crisis Superman's power level was dramatically lessened, with the most common comparison both in and out of universe was that he was much weaker than the Pre-Crisis Kryptonians with him being explicitly much weaker than the Pocket Universe Kryptonians, representing the Pre-Crisis Kryptonians.

Superman would however get much stronger in this arc then he started explicitly. The first part of this arc is the Byrne Era where Superman explicitly could not destroy the planet, move faster than light, or breath in Outer Space. This period covers roughly the first 22 months of the Post-Crisis Superman. During this period he was at least city level from being able to lift a mountain that could crush Metropolis

However it was really clear Superman hadn't really begun to tap into his full reserves of power. After John Byrne left, Dan Jurgens and other began writing Superman and letting him reach cosmic levels for brief moments. 

He was able to plow through a telekinetic assault that no force in the universe could stop

and survived a Sun-Eater Explosion that knocked him backwards in time, Sun-Eaters being still entities that eat stars 

All of this was to prepare Superman for basically the final boss of this period, the ultimate weapon Doomsday, who could tank the attacks of the entire Justice League together

even the guardians of the universe the Green Lanterns and characters on the same power level. This is notable as the Green Lanterns never got retconned by the Crisis, with even a completely new Green Lantern being able to seal a black hole

and whose automatic shields can protect against supernova and black holes but which Doomsday could just tear through.

To fight Doomsday, Superman pulled a reserve of power he didn't know he had, fighting Doomsday evenly, the two eventually "killing" each other, their fight shaking the Earth indirectly

Superman would be revived with help from the The Eradicator, a Kryptonian Superweapon with great control of matter-energy, great enough to turn the Earth's sun into a copy of the Red Sun of Krypton

The Eradicator revived Superman to aid against the threat of the Cyborg Superman, with Superman absorbing the energies of the Eradicator to grow even stronger, easily beating the Cyborg Superman

This Superman was cosmically strong even casually, being able to casually a planet-destroying meteor

There are supporting feats, such as Superman beating Darkseid's General Kalibak, 

Kalibak likely scaling in power above the New God Speedster Lightray who with the last of his energy was able to create a giant star

All this to say Superman reaches into the large star range for this period.

Speedwise, even Byrne Era Superman could intercept enhanced lightning while exhausted with Superman later saying lightning moves in slow motion to him

After that era, Superman started to get faster being able to move around fine in a time suspension lasting a fraction of a nanosecond

and would eventually scale to the Green Lanterns due to the same speed as above, with the Green Lanterns being cosmic guardians that regularly travel back and forth to Oa at the center of the universe in a day and patrol sectors of the universe that contains millions of galaxies, putting his speed at likely trillions to quadrillions of times the speed of light.

Arc 12: Mid Post-Crisis/Post-Zero Hour:

This period is a 12-year period from Zero Hour in September 1994 which altered the continuity and background of some of the characters, including Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes up to Infinite Crisis' conclusion in June 2006. I believe this period is the most iconic period of DC Comics, and is what people think of when they talk about most DC Characters, with most adaptations seeming to be based on this time period (or the Silver Age.)

During this period it was shown that Superman was shown to have mental blocks that he subconsciously developed to not damage the world around him growing him up, which was why that Superman's power level could vary and he could draw from a deeper level of power during the early Post-Crisis. Mongul helped train Superman to move past his mental blocks to prepare for the fight against Imperiex near the turn of the millennium

After releasing his mental restraints, Superman gained new feats in the galactic tier. He was able to absorb energy that would vaporize half a galaxy against the threat of Mageddon

and conclusively overpowered both Wonder Woman and Marvel's Thor (in a crossover both series continue to assert as canon)

Wonder Woman by this point may scale to Ares as she was close to the period where she would kill him, Ares being a god who can grow to the size of giants who hands span star systems

Thor of this time period also having galaxy level feats, scaling above the Silver Surfer slightly according to Loki, with Silver Surfer's power being able to destroy galaxies if misused

as well as numerous supporting feats. 

This was all leading up to Infinite Crisis, an arc that would symbolically and literally pit the Post-Crisis vs the Pre-Crisis with Superman having to fight against two different Pre-Crisis Kryptonians, the Superman of Earth-2 and Superboy Prime

The leadup to Infinite Crisis shows the reintegration of some parts of Pre-Crisis continutiy, in particular the Legion of Super-Heroes and Superman's adventures with them as Superboy arguably recanonizing the feats Superman performed as Pre-Crisis Superboy. His battles against Pre-Crisis Kryptonians show his evolution of the Post-Crisis period going from completely dwarfed in power by them to being an idealogical and power equal, though not necessarily to Pre-Crisis Superman at his strongest given his own evolution during the Bronze Age.

From around Infinite Crisis and after Post-Crisis Kryptonians would regularly be shown as relative to equal to Pre-Crisis/Silver Age Kryptonians with Superboy beating down Superboy Prime and restraining him

While Superboy Prime was stronger, it wasn't a massive gap. Similarly the Linda Danvers Supergirl was able to sucker punch and knock out the Pre-Crisis Supergirl of an unknown period

Linda Danvers wasn't a Kryptonian, but she's not depicted as being physically stronger than Kara, and Superman should scale regardless.

Superboy Prime, the main villain of Infinite Crisis, represents on some level the Pre-Crisis expectations of DC Comics and the modern Heroes attempts to fight it, pretty explicitly. He was able to overpower most of the Lantern Corps at once

with the Lantern Corps holding in a galaxy destroying attack together

A fraction of this might scale backwards to Pre-Zero Hour Superman who scales above singular Green Lanterns.

Superboy Prime has other feats before his Amp would would scale to Superman of this period, such as shifting the center of the universe away from Oa

with both him and Golden Age Superman during the first crisis withstanding an energy attack from a dying Anti-Monitor absorbing the rest of the energy of the remains of his universe

As such I think Superman from this period is in the galactic range of power.

Another odd feat from this period is it's stated by Maxima that Hollowers, the probes of Imperiex can destroy a galaxy in "hours"

Considering how massive a galaxy is, destroying one in a galaxy could very well be within the galactic range itself. There are between 100-400 billion stars in the Milky Way and only 86,400 seconds in an entire day, suggesting these Hollowers would be destroying over 1,000,000 stars on average a second, somehow. This is notable in how Superman and Doomsday are depicted as some of the only beings capable of defeating these Imperiex Probes without any outside assistance.

However the statement's obviously very ambiguous with the mechanism unknown so make of it what you will. 

In terms of speed, Superman in this period reaches the level of the minor speedforce users. Superman and Jay Garrick raced to reach Wally West first, with the two being about even, Superman slightly superior until Jay begins siphoning his speed

Jay Garrick is not as fast as Barry or Wally clearly, and can't enter the speedforce, but is fast enough that he can reach the edge of the Speedforce

This suggests Superman himself would be able to run to the edge of the speedforce, giving him some extremely impressive DC Speed Scaling such as to Wally's much vaunted speed feat against the cosmic gamblers during the era when he was holding himself back to not run into the speedforce like his mentor Barry did and defeating the Black Racer by running through time to the point of reaching where death no longer existed, outrunning the subsequent Big Bang and beginning of the universe

To be clear, Barry and Wally are both faster than Clark, this is just saying Clark is faster than these earlier Post-Crisis feats that Wally performed and should scale to them. For comparison three high tier speedforce users were unable to blitz Superboy Prime

with Superman able to fight this Superboy Prime without being blitzed.

Arc 13: Late Post-Crisis/Post-Infinite Crisis:

This five year period is the last part of the Post-Crisis period from the end of Infinite Crisis in June 2006 to the end of the Flashpoint storyline in August 2011. During this period, Superman gets a bit stronger mostly due to the one-year timeskip during the 52 storyline immediately following Infinite Crisis but not to the same extent as the prior arcs.

There's actually a fairly clear quantification of the difference with it taking four "Normal" Kryptonians to hold down Superman

As mentioned Kryptonians are no longer really divided between Pre- and Post-Crisis. This period hypes up normal Kryptonians, with 27 of them soloing the Earth sans Superman which makes sense given how much trouble just one (Superboy Prime) caused them

This suggests Superman may be in the range of 3-4x the power he had in the prior period.

Notably this Superman does have some universal showings, most notably to me is him and Supergirl fighting and beating Blackstarr, a clear reference to the Pre-Crisis villainess who is one of the universal feats of Bronze Age Superman and Supergirl

This Blackstarr very explicitly wields the energy of the cosmos, able to shape it as she wills, with the issue somewhat implying this is the same encounter as the Pre-Crisis one being re-canonized. 

Speed-wise Reverse Flash complimented Superman's speed, saying it "rivals" his own

and in Final Crisis he was able to react to Wally and Barry moving the fastest they ever had

Once again, this supports Superman being on the speed of a lesser speedforce user, fast enough to not be statue-d against high tier speedforce users. 

The New 52:

The New 52 was a temporary continuity extending 52 months, from the end of the Flashpoint storyline in August 2011 to DC Rebirth in May 2016. It was caused by Doctor Manhattan removing 10 years from the Post-Crisis storyline, making the heroes younger and less inexperienced and for that reason lowering the power level, though as with COIE much of Batman's and Green Lantern's storylines remained in continuity, presumably because they happened in-universe more than 10 years ago.

The New 52 Superman had three main power levels. His Pre-Training Power Level before he began to train his power level relatively early on in the New 52, his Post-Training Level after he finished it near the end of 2012, and the 2014 Truth storyline, where Superman was temporarily depowered, and was probably slightly weaker then his Pre-Training level.

When Superman began to train, he was kept underground with Sunlight holding up the weight of the planet for five days straight which he describes as the first time he exerted himself. 

and afterwards reached the power level he would be for most of the New 52, scaling above Green Lanterns with the same Lantern scaling as always

withstood blasts from Lexus, Destroyer of Life that supposedly no force in the universe could withstand

could give Orion a pitched match

who destroyed a Solar System with the shockwaves of his blows

and Superman and Brainiac were able to survive inside a black hole calced at taking about 2.5 supernova worth of energy

As such it's fair to say that this version of Superman is in the upper stellar range

Even before his training this version of Superman could fly from Pluto to Earth in moments

After his training, Superman could fly from the edge of the universe to Earth in 60 days

and after his training can once again match the speed of the Lanterns or outright blitz them

Later in the New 52 there was the Convergence event which undid the Multiversal collapse of Crisis on Infinite Earths leading up to

Arc 15: DC Rebirth: 

DC Rebirth was not a crisis event, but instead the restoration of DC Continuity with the Rebirth event May 2016 undoing the 10 years lost in the Flashpoint event, reuniting all three continuities as one timeline somehow. The Rebirth era lasted roughly from May 2016 to Infinite Frontier March 2021 during which everyone had their continuities restored and the various random parts of the DC Mythos started to become more interconnected.

This Superman has the feats of all versions before him, save arguably the Golden Age though some parts of Rebirth even suggested even those were canon.

Rebirth Superman does scale to Rebirth Hal Jordan who Superman defeated when Hal was hax-ed into thinking Superman was controlled by Parallax, 

Rebirth Hal being strong enough to reduce an explosion that would destroy two universes to subatomic in scale

and possibly scaling to infinitely powerful Multiversal Entities like the Emotional Entities and the Spectre

and with a DC Nation Magazine suggesing Superman is the fourth fastest speedster, below only Barry, Wally, and Reverse Flash above the likes of Godspeed and the Black Racer who have shown to be relative to Barry and Wally suggesting Superman's relatively to them.

It also suggests that Superman would be even higher if he's allowed to fly, and would crack the top three, suggesting he would be faster than Reverse Flash in a standard fight scenario. 

Arc 16: Infinite Frontier

Starting in March 2021, Infinite Frontier is the new DC canon-changing event. Infinite Frontier's policy is that everything counts when regarding a character's history which includes every version of Superman before. Superman also has a much talked about statement from 2023, this year as of time and writing.

During Action Comics 1050 Lex Luthor teleports Superman away via technology but Superman instantly reappears and says to Lex his body and mind are stronger then he's ever been, and that concepts like weight, distance, temperature, and spacetime have largely lost their meaning for him

Taken at face value this would be an absolutely insane upgrade for Superman, as it would scale him above the amplifications the 6D Suns gave him in Rebirth which allowed him to defeat the World Forger and destroy his multiverse

World Forger is a 6D entity meaning he's much stronger then someone like Mxyzptlk for instance who has almost no access to the sixth dimension with it being stated it would take all his powers just to reach there

If it's true that Superman is indeed stronger then this now, he would be stronger then any other Superman ever seen with the possible exception of Golden Superman Prime 1,000,000 only because he's from the future and his power level is never really specified, and it is stated he gave his descendants "powers far beyond any metahuman ever held by any metahuman ever" which would include his past self, though this is kinda contradicted by the fact that Kal Kent is almost certainly not stronger than Infinite Frontier Superman so make of it what you will

Anyways, those are DC's arcs and how Superman has changed power-wise throughout them. I hope this helps you better scale between DC characters knowing where the big changes in power levels occur for at least some of them. 

As a final bit, I want to rank the versions of Superman based on how I think they would do against each other, with and without retroactive scaling. I'm going to be splitting up Byrne and Post-Byrne Early Post-Crisis and Pre and Post Training New 52 Superman just because there's such a gap in power levels.

Without Retroactive Scaling:

18: Pre-War Period Superman: On some level this depends on whether you think Golden Age was always lightspeed or not but if not he's easily the slowest and has probably the weakest power feats on this list.

17: War Period Superman: Basically a slightly stronger version of Pre-War Period

16: Byrne Era Superman: Had better feats of power than Pre-War to War Period Superman. If you allow for lightspeed statements, he'd be at a speed disadvantage probably, but I definitely think Byrne Era could take a few hits from Earlier Golden Age Superman and might get a random fluctation in his power from which did allow him some feats in that relativistic to ftl range. He was also just a more skilled and tactical fighter with a lot more experience and better abilities, being able to fly use heat vision even then. The only real thing I think War Period Superman would have going for him is possibly better speed, and even then not by that much, as well as a ruthless pragmaticism that Byrne Era definitely doesn't have, but overall I think Byrne Era would win.

15: Pre-Training New 52 Superman: Both could reach a similar high end when fully motivated, but I think New 52 Superman had a much higher base power, as even at the start of his training he was able to hold up the weight of the planet with little issue while early Post-Crisis was knocked out by a city level bomb. Also he can natively tank being in space while Post-Crisis couldn't until he released his mental blocks.

14: Pre-Zero Hour Post-Crisis Superman: Had the same base power level as New 52 Superman and New 52 Superman could maybe match some of his higher feats if he was fully motivated but Post-Crisis had better scaling, more control of his powers at this point, and was a more intelligent fighter.

13: Post-Training New 52 Superman: Pre-Zero Hour Post-Crisis Superman vs End of New 52 Superman is actually a really interesting matchup in my opinion, with the two having relatively similar power levels, speed levels, and ability versatility. While Post-Crisis has better personal feats of speed, New 52 comparables more favorably to Lanterns whose speed levels in general shouldn't have been altered by the Flashpoint event, and New 52 I think has a broader base of fighting enemies on his own power level, with the New 52 being a lot more fight-heavy then Post-Crisis in general and with a lot more characters that were meant to be physically imposing threats to Clark.

12: Post-War Period Golden Age Superman: I do think Post-War Period Superman has worse power and power variety compared to either Pre-Zero Hour and Post-Training New 52. However he can break the time barrier which probably means he's significantly faster, and even if not the ability to time travel is a broken ability I think both of them would struggle to fight. 

11: Atomic Age Superman: Slightly stronger Post-War Golden Age Superman

10: Early Silver Age Superman: This version of Superman could sneeze away a solar system. It's possible he could kill anyone prior with a single bloodlusted punch. He also has the best quantifiable speed feats than anyone prior, and can break the time barrier as well.

9: Mid Silver Age Superman: Basically a much stronger version of of Early Silver Age Superman with potential scaling to Sun-Eaters.

8: Late Silver Age Superman: Almost identical to Mid Silver Age Superman, with slightly more experience and feats.

7: Early Bronze Age Superman: Superman got even stronger with the introduction of the New Gods and fighting Magnar

6: Post-Zero Hour Post-Crisis Superman: This is where I think it might get controversial especially. I think that Early Bronze Age Superman is stronger than Infinite Crisis Era Superman. But Bronze Age's best speed scaling unless you backwards scale from the races with the Flash are to breaking the time barrier which is something that a Superman that can get close to the speedforce should be much faster than as well as have numerous ways to get around higher durability such as using Torquasm Vo to engage him in a mental battle. Even beyond that if Infinite Crisis suggests Superman is as strong as a Pre-Crisis Kryptonian, I don't think Early Bronze Age is outside the range of a normal Pre-Crisis Kryptonian to damage, especially with something concentrated like heat vision. 

5: Mid Bronze Age Superman: This version of Superman is potentially a lot stronger than Early Bronze Age with scaling to Shazam and Invincible Man. As such I don't think even concentrated anything Infinite Crisis Superman would have anything he could do against him, with this version being much stronger than Superboy Prime which Superman and Golden Age Superman struggled heavily against.

4: Post-Infinite Crisis Superman: This version of Superman still probably has the speed advantage on Mid Bronze Age Superman as well as another durability-negating ability he showed when he canceled out Darkseid with his singing, matching the vibrational frequencies of the strings making him up. Late Post-Crisis added several hax abilities to Superman I think could beat a stronger but slower Kryptonian. I should note that also while Mid Bronze Age Superman has arguable scaling to a universal feat, End of Post-Crisis Superman also has arguable scaling to universal feats like Blackstarr's, which means Mid Bronze Age may not even have the power advantage. As such I think Post-Crisis Superman would win. 

3: Late Bronze Age Superman: This version finally gets a speed feat to match, if not surpass the speed feats giving Post-Crisis the advantage with his breaking the bonds of infinity. This Superman is also stronger even if you gave Post-Crisis Superman Universal scaling, as Late Bronze Age Superman scales to Maalador whose dimension threatened numerous dimensions and to Supergirl who could break the Anti-Monitor's armor comparable to the Monitor whose dying energy creating a dimension that contained multiple universes. While I think Post-Crisis Superman arguably has more powerful abilities overall, and I think is a better fighter, I do think Pre-Crisis Superman would win due to a raw stat advantage. 

2: Rebirth Superman: This one is easy. He has the feats and abilities of all prior versions of himself including Pre-Crisis, Post-Crisis, and New 52 (and possibly Golden Age), as well as more.

1: Infinite Frontier Superman: Canonically the strongest Superman yet, scaling to everything prior and with his won feats. 

For the retroactive scaling version I'm not going to be separating the Golden Age Superman or the Silver Age Superman into phases, as all feats backwards scale meaning there's only 13 versions.

13: Byrne Era Superman: Generally the weakest, most of the time being in the city level range with some high ends when fully motivated

12: Pre-Training New 52 Superman: Physically stronger and faster then Byrne Era but lacking in skill and versatility 

11: Post-Training New 52 Superman: Can use his powers better than his Pre-Training counterpart

10: Pre-Zero Hour Superman: Has some arguably crazy retroactive scaling from the Green Lantern Corps but lacks time barrier feats. Still arguably much stronger than Post-Training if he is stronger than 3,600th of a galaxybusting attack.

9: Golden Age Superman: Better power scaling and speed scaling having personally broken the time barrier and being equal to Silver Age Superman

8: Silver Age Superman: Canonically equal to Golden Age Superman but with a bit better powers and versatility

7: Early Bronze Age Superman: Stronger then he was in the Silver Age, though doesn't seem to be by that much. 

6: Post-Zero Hour Superman: By Infinite Crisis is supposed to be about on par with Pre-Crisis Kryptonians, meaning he should be in the range of the last three but with arguably more broken abilities and being a more serious tactical fighter. 

4-5: Mid Bronze Age Superman  and Post-Zero Hour Superman: Depends on if you think either or both are universal and whether by this point Bronze Age Superman would scale to his later speed feat of breaking the bonds of infinity. I more often would favor Post-Crisis Superman here as I believe that unless Mid Bronze Age has a clear stat advantage Post-Crisis Superman has stronger abilities and is more tactical.

3: Late Bronze Age Superman: Extremely powerful, being unmatched by anyone prior, and with speeds that are possibly the highest here depending on how you think "running to the edge of the speedforce" vs "breaking the bonds of infinity" compare in terms of speed. 

2: Rebirth Superman: Scales to everything above and more

1: Infinite Frontier Superman: Scales to everything above and more