>>2438
Superman being "too powerful" is such a fucking stupid idea. All that means is that he fights other guys on his same level, or he fights guys that don't use brute force. That's why his archenemies are Lex Luthor and Brainiac, two guys whose strength is negligible, but who are both basically mad scientists. Superman's first recurring villain, the first supervillain ever, was The Ultra-Humanite, an old crippled man. And, by the way, is it really so hard to see the connection between the name "Ultra-Humanite" and the name "Superman?" Is it so hard to see the comparison being made here? The philosophical implications? But I suppose that's too much to ask, since it's apparently already asking too much to just go with the very fucking obvious here and show that most superman stories actually have him beat the enemy not with his powers, but with his intelligence.
As you mentioned, he's a reporter. All his supporting characters are reporters. And that used to mean something. He doesn't just beat up criminals, he solves crimes. He's as much a detective as Batman. Being a detective is his day job. Only Superman goes a step further, because, going with his higher power level, he needs to solve mysteries that go beyond normal street crime, or even international conspiracies. Superman needs to solve mysteries that frequently end up being the work of a reality warping wizard imp from the fifth dimension. Superman's powers don't mean a damn thing when he fights Mr. Mxyzptlk, yet he is one of Superman's most iconic and recurring villains, around whom many great stories are written.
Even Superman's lesser villains are made to have Superman outsmart them. Metallo has a Kryptonite heart, and Parasite can steal people's power, so Superman can't get close to either of them. Zod and the other Phantom Zone criminals have Superman's powers plus military fight training, negating said powers and making it so Superman is basically fighting just stronger guys than him, who also have tactical experience and frequently command armies of mooks with Superman level strength, making so the power is a complete non factor, except for the danger to the world that Superman needs to stop.
But it's not just that he needs to solve simple mysteries of whodunnit. Many of the best Superman stories have him grappling with ethical conundrums. This again is why SJWs cannot write him. They see the world in black and white, and cannot comprehend the concept of an ethical dilemma. Sure, Superman can do things, but what things should he do? People think Superman is about flying around and punching things, but it's not. It's about solving mysteries and then figuring out what is the correct course of action, both logically and ethically. But the closest the movies can get to this is by having Zod threaten civilians, both in Superman II and in Man of Steel. Basically no other Superman movie has bothered with it. But I suppose it's better they don't even bother, because modern writers cannot, or even are not allowed, to have actual ethical dilemmas. Just look at what they've done to Star Trek. A series that was once very much about those same things, mysteries and dilemmas. Now about shooting lasers and calling the audience shitlords for even thinking that dilemmas are possible.
And the dilemmas are a big part of his personality. Yes, Superman, Clark Kent, has a very strong moral compass. He does face temptation, but doesn't give into it very easily. But that's the point. It's not just about doing the right thing, because we all know that it's good to do the right thing. Superman has to grapple with figuring out what the right thing is, and when he does, worlds are on the line, since he has to figure this out in the middle of a fight with Brainiac, and he only has a split second to decide if it's moral to save Kandor, a piece of a dead world, his birth planet that represents all the things he can't fix or save, that he now has a chance to revive, in favor of Metropolis, his current home, with his current friends, but where he never quite fits in, and can never be a "normal" person.
I think a lot of this also comes down to modern audiences not being exposed to Superman, and instead being exposed to another excellent and almost equivalent series, Dragon Ball Z. The comparisons between Superman and Goku have been made, and they're both great superheroes, but there's a big difference between western superhero comics and eastern superhero manga, or at least the big popular examples, like Superman and Dragon Ball Z. Japanese superhero stories very frequently rely on getting stronger to beat the villain. Western superhero stories almost never do this. For all the discussion of his different power levels over time, Superman's power has actually stayed very static through most of his history, and has only fluctuated on a few occasions, usually not even related to solving a problem. There is general power creep, but again, it's not done to help him solve a problem. He almost never solves problems by getting stronger. Goku does. Many popular japanese superheroes do. So people see Superman, as powerful as Goku got after defeating many villains, and think that means Superman has no way to get stronger and therefore no interesting stories to tell, but that's ridiculous. It just means that the stories he tells aren't about getting stronger. They're about getting smarter. Series like Dragon Ball do also feature a degree of planning in their fights, but even then, it's frequently planning a way to get stronger, rather than a way to outwit the villain, so casuals, who are much more exposed to popular anime than they are to Superman, don't understand that Superman, and most western superheroes really, don't operate this way.