Respect Composite Superman

[Endless Mike]

Another wacky but insanely overpowered Pre-Crisis DC villain. As you can tell by the title, this guy has a lot of different names (in fact, this thread actually covers two separate characters, but they both have the exact same powerset, so anything one of them did could easily be accomplished by the other). His appearance is also rather goofy-looking (even characters in-universe have said as much).

For an overall summary of what his deal is, we can look at his profile in Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe Vol 1 #5:

Spoiler: I hope the text is large enough to be legible

tl;dr - Joe Meach, a has-been stunt diver who resented Batman and Superman, got a job as a janitor at the Superman Museum, and when lightning struck a set of statuettes of the Legion of Super-Heroes, due to the peculiar way in which the statues were made, he was temporarily imbued with all of their powers. Later, an alien named Xan restored his powers, but Meach reformed at the last second and sacrificed himself to save Batman and Superman and defeat Xan. Xan later acquired the same powers for himself.

His appearances (save for reprints and cameos) were all from World's Finest vol 1, specifically, issues #142, #168, #283, and #284, so I really only had to cover 4 comics for this thread.

Here's some more detail on his origin, as it's pretty ridiculous:

Spoiler: Lightning can do anything, it seems

I'm going to have to split this into multiple posts as apparently this forum won't let me make posts with more than 5 "pieces of media" (including links)...

 

[Endless Mike]

As previously mentioned, he has the combined powers of the Legion of Super-Heroes. This doesn't mean he has the powers of every Legionnaire ever, though, just the ones represented by the statues in the museum exhibit. But still, that's quite a lot. Let's go over them one at a time:

Brainiac 5

- He has this Legionnaire's power of 12th - level super-intelligence. His mind works faster and more efficiently than a supercomputer, and he has a vast knowledge of all types of science, giving him the ability to Macgyver together super-gadgets at will. Feats he has shown with this power include:

• Coordinating the use of all of his powers together, and learning how to combine them in new and unique ways
• The knowledge to sabotage a bunch of rockets so they would fly where he wanted them to
• After regaining his powers and memories, he instantly figured out how he gained the powers and why he lost them last time
• As Xan/Amalgamax, he built a device that absorbed the power from the Legion statuettes, allowing him to recharge his powers at will (indefinitely, according to him).

Spoiler: Brains and brawn

Chameleon Boy

- This gives him the power of shapeshifting. That's how he created his ridiculous guise in the first place, and he has also taken other forms, such as those of Superman, Batman, Robin, and even the Batmobile. Notable is that this Durlan shapeshifting power can't be seen through even by Kryptonian senses - when he disguised himself as Batman, Superman's x-ray vision couldn't tell he wasn't the real deal.

Spoiler: Takes his new "Amalgamax" form

Spoiler: Takes Robin's form

 

[Endless Mike]

Chameleon Boy (continued)

Spoiler: Superman can't tell he's not really Batman

Spoiler: Becomes the Batmobile

Spoiler: Becomes a statue of the Joker

Saturn Girl

- Telepathy. As noted below, he should be capable of any feat she can do, but he mostly used this for mind reading, such as figuring out Batman and Superman's secret identities, learning their plans and strategies, and anticipating their every move.

Spoiler: Discovers Batman and Superman's secret identities

 

[Endless Mike]

Saturn Girl (continued)

Spoiler: Reads their minds to avoid a Phantom Zone trap

Colossal Boy

- This power allows him to increase his size and return to normal. I'm not sure of his maximum size, but it should be at least that of Colossal Boy himself. It can probably also be assumed that his super strength scales up accordingly as his size increases.

Spoiler: Beating Colossal Boy at his own game

Cosmic Boy

- Gives him the ability to manipulate magnetism and magnetic fields (basically think Magneto, except maybe without some of the mutant's more exotic abilities).

With this, he was able to dig up vast amounts of iron, gold, and silver from underground and transport them across the world to build himself a castle.

Spoiler: Ignore the fact that silver and gold aren't magnetic...

Shrinking Violet

- Allows him to shrink in size and return to normal. Combined with Colossal Boy's power, this essentially gives him full size-changing. Again, his minimum size is unknown, but it should be at least as small as Shrinking Violet's minimum.

Lightning Lad

- Allows him to generate and manipulate lightning and electricity. He can notably use this to blast the statuettes and recharge his powers if he needs to (although the one time he attempted this, it was too late, as his lightning powers had already deserted him). The lightning can also be set on 'stun' mode.

Spoiler: Stuns Batman with lightning

 

[Endless Mike]

Mon-El

- Grants him all of Mon-El's Daxamite abilities (basically the same as Superman, except his weakness is lead and not Kryptonite). However, unlike Mon-El, the Composite Superman is immune to the effects of lead (he wears a lead mask and it doesn't harm him at all).

Matter-Eater Lad

- Gives him the ability to eat and digest anything, even substances that are invulnerable to Kryptonian super-powers. We never saw him actually use this power, but we know he has it.

Starboy

- Gives him the ability to temporarily increase the weight/mass of objects and people.

Spoiler: Nearly sends Batman to the core of the Earth

Element Lad

- Gives him the ability to transmute elements and matter. Notably, he is able to use this to turn ordinary matter in to Green Kryptonite and back, and he also demonstrated the ability to transform things into tin, diamond, antimatter, and other substances.

Spoiler: Transmutation to tin and Kryptonite

Light Lass

- Just like Starboy, except in reverse - the ability to make things lighter. The two powers combine, much like Shrinking Violet and Colossal Boy's, to basically give him the ability to alter the mass and weight of anything in any way he pleases.

Ultra Boy

- This hero's gimmick is that he has Kryptonian - like powers, except he can only use one of them at a time. These powers include super strength, speed, stamina, durability, flight, super breath, "penetra-vision" (which is like Kryptonian X-ray vision but better, as it can also see through lead), and "flash vision" (basically heat vision with another name). However, unlike Ultra Boy, Composite Superman is seemingly able to use all of these powers at once. Ultra Boy's strength, combined with that of Mon-El and Supergirl, is the reason he is said to be over 3 times as strong as Superman.

Spoiler: Sees through lead

Triplicate Girl

- With this power, he can split himself into 3 equally powerful copies, each with all of his powers, and also merge back into one. This means you effectively have to fight 3 of him at once.

Spoiler

(It's kind of weird that no one considered that Meach could just use super speed or any of his many ranged powers to stop multiple missiles at once, but this way works too I guess)

 

[Endless Mike]

Triplicate Girl (continued)

Spoiler

Elastic Lad

- Actually Jimmy Olsen, when he got powers and joined the Legion. This power is stretching, a la Mr. Fantastic, you probably know how it works.

Spoiler

Spoiler: Bonus points for humiliating Superman by using Jimmy Olsen's power, of all things, as the coup de grace

Bouncing Boy

- The ability to inflate his body into a balloon and bounce around at high speed, without taking significant damage. Hey, not every power can be a winner. We only saw him use this once, as I guess he realized that it wasn't all that useful, with all of the other powers he had.

Invisible Kid

- The ability to become invisible at will. Notably, this makes him completely undetectable even to Superman's many vision powers.

Spoiler: Disappears from Batman, Superman, and the LOSH's sight

 

[Endless Mike]

Sun Boy

- Gives him the ability to emit and manipulate intense heat and light, as well as being immune to virtually all forms of heat and radiation.

Spoiler: Melts a statue

Spoiler: Uses this power, among others, on low intensity to torture Batman

Phantom Girl

- The ability to become intangible at will.

Supergirl

- All of Supergirl's powers. Notably, all of his powers stack, which is why he is over 3 times as strong as Superman is. He is also immune to the effects of Green Kryptonite.

As mentioned, all of these powers stack, and he can use all of them in concert. He is also immune to many of the Legionnaires' weaknesses, like lead and Green Kryptonite, and Ultra Boy's limitation of only being able to use one power at a time. His powers should scale to any feats by any of the Legionnaires in question (at their normal power levels), but I'll have to cover more Pre-Crisis LOSH stuff before I can give a good estimate on their maximum capabilities.

Other Abilities

Fighting Skills: As mentioned in his bio, "While possessing these powers the Composite Superman is an extraordinary athlete and superior hand - to - hand combatant. Plain Joe Meach is neither of those things". This implies the powers give him a measure of physical skill as well as pure stat upgrades.

Antimatter transmutation: He claimed to do this by using all of his abilities together (although I'm not sure how many of them would have played a part), but he was able to turn half of Batman and Superman's bodies into antimatter, although with a delayed reaction for some reason (it would take a few minutes before they would annihilate). It's possible he could have made the reaction happen immediately, but just wanted to prolong their suffering, as that would be in character for him. This transmutation also seemed to significantly weaken both of them.

Various feats that haven't been posted already:

Spoiler: Defeats Superman by transmuting an object into Green Kryptonite

 

[Endless Mike]

Overpowers Superman and defeats him again, as well as defeating Batman. Notable is that Superman said that he wasn't holding back, yet he still got one-shotted:

Spoiler

- No-sells a "full-power anti-energy blast" from Wildfire, which he claims could hurt Mon-El, Ultra Boy, or Supergirl:

Spoiler

(the page after this is shown under the Chameleon Boy section, where he transforms to Amalgamax)

- No-sells a combined attack from Lightning Lad, Sun Boy, and Wildfire, then defeats them all with super breath:

Spoiler

 

[Endless Mike]

Weaknesses

- As mentioned, he is unaffected by lead and Green Kryptonite, and can use all of his powers (including all of Ultra Boy's powers) simultaneusly. However, he does have weaknesses, the main one being that his powers are temporary. They seem to last for a certain amount of time before wearing off and needed to be recharged. The time limit is unknown, but we do know that it's longer than 12 hours. Xan as Amalgamax mitigated this weakness by creating a portable recharging device, however he doesn't carry it with him (probably so his enemies can't steal or destroy it). He keeps it in his ship and returns there if he needs to recharge. It's also worth noting that when his powers wear off, any changes he's caused (such as transmuting elements) are undone, and revert to the way they were before. Also, Joe Meach lost his memories of having the powers shortly after they wore off, although this didn't seem to apply to Xan (I'm not sure why).

Spoiler

- Another weakness is that his telepathic abilities can be blocked by another sufficiently skilled/powerful telepath, as shown when the real Saturn Girl prevented him from reading the Legion's minds.

Spoiler

Ultimately, the weakness that did him in was psychological: Superman and Batman came up with a plan to trick him, using Princess Projectra's illusion powers, into thinking he had the same disease that killed his father, and the only way to cure it was to relinquish his powers.

Spoiler

Other Potential Weaknesses

• While he was shown to be immune to the effects of Green Kryptonite, it's unknown whether he would be vulnerable to Red, Gold, or any of the other varieties. My instinct says that no, he wouldn't, but there is no way to prove this one way or the other since he was never exposed to them.
• We also never saw what, if any, effect red sunlight might have on him. Again I am tempted to say it would do nothing, due to Sun Boy's powers negating it, as well as his general immunity to Kryptonian and Daxamite weaknesses. But even if it did work, the most it would do would be to negate Mon-El and Supergirl's powers, and he would still have all of the others, including Ultra Boy's (so he would be as fast, strong, and powerful as a PC Kryptonian, just not 3x that).
• As he was careful to avoid a Phantom Zone projector, it can be inferred that being sent to the Phantom Zone might have incapacitated him, although perhaps there is something in his vast powerset that could have gotten him out of there.