Current Events > Would Superman be killable with a Death Note?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Would the power of the Death Note be able to give Superman a heart attack? Also, what name would the Death Note consider his true name?

Clark Kent? Or Kal-El?

idk.

the rules make sure to say stuff like, "the human whose name..."

No. It only works on humans.

The only way I could see this happening is if the author of the Death Note said something like "Bruce Wayne sees Superman and goes crazy, kills him using a Kryptonite bullet and then jumps off a building".

Assuming it would work on a Kryptonian, yes. It's pretty safe to call the Death Note magical and Superman is vulnerable to magic. (inb4 someone pedantically goes "UMMMM AKSHULLY HE'S NOT VULNERABLE HE'S JUST NOT RESISTANT") He does still need his organs to live, so a superpowered heart attack should work the same as anyone else.

His name is a little trickier, but I'd lean on Kal-El being it. There's a rule that mentions the Shinigami eyes show their name regardless of what's in the family registry, so that indicates your birth name is what matters.

Not directly, but something like having a human (probably batman) kill him before themselves would work.

itachi15243 posted...

Not directly, but something like having a human (probably batman) kill him before themselves would work.

The Death Note doesn't let you do the impossible, you'd go through a lot of humans.

My reading of Death Note was that it was the Demons who actually did the killing.

I mean plenty of people have survived heart attacks but everyone who is written in the book dies. It's the demon's going and killing 'em on some level.

Otherwise what's the literal point of Ryuk?

And yeah I think Ryuk could kill Superman instantly if he wanted to.

He's not invinciible, however could anyone spell his real name? Can you even write Kal-el in human letters?

pegusus123456 posted...

The Death Note doesn't let you do the impossible, you'd go through a lot of humans.

I mean the movie he gets someone to die while robbing a specific bus at a specific time for no reason.

So it's a little shakey what you're allowed to do.

You defo can violate free will with the book. So maybe "Superman dies while accidentally falling down an esclator and landing on a pile of spikey kryptonite in front of an impressionable 7 year old who cries for the next 2 years"

UnfairRepresent posted...

My reading of Death Note was that it was the Demons who actually did the killing.

Otherwise what's the literal point of Ryuk?

The shinigami don't do anything, it's literally just the notebook. They're essentially leeches. Humans have a predestined lifespan. If a shinigami cuts it short by writing someone's name in their Death Note, that person dies and the lifespan they would have had goes to the shinigami.

Ryuk is there because shinigami society is stagnant as fuck. They do absolutely nothing 99% of the time. Some of them end up dying just because they're too lazy to write names. They mostly sit around, gamble, and spy on humans. Ryuk being bored as hell is the catalyst for the series; he drops his Death Note in the human world to see what happens. He's there to explain things about the Death Note when it's entertaining to do so and that's his purpose in Light's plot.

Ryuk could either effortlessly kill Superman or do absolutely nothing to him. Shinigami can see someone's name above their head, so there'd be no question of what name to write. It thus only matters if the Note can affect non-human life. Other than that, shinigami aren't particularly strong or powerful, so he couldn't do anything to Supes. On the flipside though, Superman probably wouldn't be able to do anything to him.

UnfairRepresent posted...

My reading of Death Note was that it was the Demons who actually did the killing.

I mean plenty of people have survived heart attacks but everyone who is written in the book dies. It's the demon's going and killing 'em on some level.

Otherwise what's the literal point of Ryuk?

And yeah I think Ryuk could kill Superman instantly if he wanted to.

the demons (shinigami) use the death notes to kill, and they mostly just do so to add to their life spans.

as far as Ryuk's purpose, it's to introduce a death note to a human because he was bored. like, each demon is assigned a death note and they use it to kill, but a demon isn't necessary for the killing, and the death note that Light uses doesn't belong to Ryuk - it's one that Ryuk stole from another demon.

pegusus123456 posted...

The shinigami don't do anything, it's literally just the notebook.

That's so lame

No. It only works on humans, and you can't use it to get someone to kill another.

UnfairRepresent posted...

That's so lame

Literally why ryuk dropped it into the human realm

UnfairRepresent posted...

I mean the movie he gets someone to die while robbing a specific bus at a specific time for no reason.

So it's a little shakey what you're allowed to do.

You defo can violate free will with the book. So maybe "Superman dies while accidentally falling down an esclator and landing on a pile of spikey kryptonite in front of an impressionable 7 year old who cries for the next 2 years"

Yes, that wasn't in question. It lets you mind control people. The issue is that it doesn't let you do something impossible. If you say that someone will spraypaint graffiti on the Washington Monument and then hang themselves off the Hollywood sign ten minutes later, the Death Note will disregard your instructions and just instantly kill that person because it isn't possible to get from DC to LA that quickly.

Your example might be a bit too strict. If there exists a staircase with spiky kryptonite and an impressionable seven-year-old at the bottom, it'd work. Otherwise it'd just give him its default heart attack.

Writing that someone kills Superman is going to go one of two ways.
1) You write Superman's name in it and write his cause of death as murder. That means the Note works on him and you don't need to bother with making it murder.
2) It doesn't work on him which means he doesn't qualify for the rule that you can't explicitly force someone to murder someone else. So you can do a workaround where you mind control someone into killing Superman. The issue there is that he's Superman. Most people are not going to be capable of killing him, so the Note is going to disregard most of the people you write in it and just default to a heart attack.

pegusus123456 posted...

If you say that someone will spraypaint graffiti on the Washington Monument and then hang themselves off the Hollywood sign ten minutes later, the Death Note will disregard your instructions and just instantly kill that person because it isn't possible to get from DC to LA that quickly.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/U69YpdQJTRg

Challenge accepted

No because the DN exists in an otherwise mundane world devoid of superpowers.

100% yes

probably, supes seem to get old and not immune to time

Nukazie posted...

probably, supes seem to get old and not immune to time

Old age won't work as a cause of death with the Death Note unless they're already super old. There's a time limit (23 days, I think?) and they'll just die at the end of it.

Rule's mostly to keep you from giving your loved ones a long life.

0Renegade posted...

Literally why ryuk dropped it into the human realm

Magic Demons testing humanity in a non judgmental way via the Deathnote Is way more interesting than a magic notebook and some NEET Demon just watches

I'm gonna say that if it did work it wouldn't stick.

No.

If Kal-El is the name that needs to be written to kill Superman, I'm pretty sure it would have to be written in Kryptonian.

Conceptually, yes, but there are 1 million different factors, depending on who is writing the story and how they fuse the rules of the two settings.

Superman absolutely considers his true name to be Clark. His wife calls him Clark, his parents call him Clark, his friends (who know his secret identity) call him Clark. The only people who really call him Kal are people who don't know him very well or straight up don't know his secret identity. The best example is that Supergirl, someone who actually knew baby Kal-El, still calls him Clark after he introduced himself to her when she landed.

So depending on what the Death Note considers his "true name" to be, it could be very difficult to kill him.

Compsognathus posted...

Superman absolutely considers his true name to be Clark. His wife calls him Clark, his parents call him Clark, his friends (who know his secret identity) call him Clark. The only people who really call him Kal are people who don't know him very well or straight up don't know his secret identity.

So depending on what the Death Note considers his "true name" to be, it could be very difficult to kill him.

This is a very good point

Beveren_Rabbit posted...

No. It only works on humans.

this

It'll work but some comic level of BS alliws him to get saved by the Dearh Note's effect.

Compsognathus posted...

Superman absolutely considers his true name to be Clark. His wife calls him Clark, his parents call him Clark, his friends (who know his secret identity) call him Clark. The only people who really call him Kal are people who don't know him very well or straight up don't know his secret identity. The best example is that Supergirl, someone who actually knew baby Kal-El, still calls him Clark after he introduced himself to her when she landed.

So depending on what the Death Note considers his "true name" to be, it could be very difficult to kill him.

Doesn't Wonder Woman call him Kal?

jumi posted...

Doesn't Wonder Woman call him Kal?

In some stories. I never really understood why though. She isn't from Krypton. It is like if in DragonBall, Piccalo called Goku Kakarot

jumi posted...

Doesn't Wonder Woman call him Kal?

This is typically explained as WW not really liking to use superhero names. Superman has always been public with his alien name, so she called him Kal. A habit she continued even after learning his name was Clark. This has its advantages in that she can use it regardless of who is around, whereas Clark can only be used when you around other people in the know.

pegusus123456 posted...

There's a rule that mentions the Shinigami eyes show their name regardless of what's in the family registry, so that indicates your birth name is what matters.

Does this mean the Shinigami are all transphobic assholes and deadname people (no pun intended) all the time

Also how does this apply to somebody whose last name changes after marriage

TMOG posted...

Does this mean the Shinigami are all transphobic assholes and deadname people (no pun intended) all the time

Also how does this apply to somebody whose last name changes after marriage

We'd have to consult somebody with shinigami eyes to see

Compsognathus posted...

This is typically explained as WW not really liking to use superhero names. Superman has always been public with his alien name, so she called him Kal. A habit she continued even after learning his name was Clark. This has its advantages in that she can use it regardless of who is around, whereas Clark can only be used when you around other people in the know.

WW: "Good work today, Kal."
Supes: "You too, Diana. Top form as always."
WW: "Alright, I'm out of here. See you tomorrow, Kal. You too, Bru--"
Batman: "Batman."

A_Good_Boy posted...

We'd have to consult somebody with shinigami eyes to see

Assuming shinigami even know what transphobia is, they probably wouldn't care too much, given that they kill people all the time to prolong their own lifespans.

I doubt it, there's no reason for its limits to go far beyond what's necessary to kill humans tbh. Considering that's who they were specifically designed for.

And I imagine supes being above any capacity the book has shown to kill. That and even if it did work he could probably revive himself the same way he did post doomsday.