Ghost Rider vs. Superman: Who Is More Powerful & Who Wins the Fight?

Ghost Rider and Superman are both known as the most powerful beings in their respective universes. Even though the two have entirely different motivations, the fact stands both of them have excessive physical might and plenty of powers to go around. It’s highly unlikely that Superman and Ghost Rider would ever end up in a battle, but if it did happen? Who would come out on top? This is why today, we decided to stage a hypothetical battle between Ghost Rider and Superman. Let’s see who between them is more powerful and who would win in a fight. 

Ghost Rider is more powerful than Superman and would have no trouble winning a fight against him. Ghost Rider has a more versatile magical power set; he directly abuses one of Superman’s biggest weaknesses – magic. He is also highly durable, and Superman has no way of disposing of Ghost Rider. The Man of Steel might have the physical advantage, but this is pretty much it. Every other aspect of his character Ghost Rider easily abuses. 

Now that we’ve covered that Ghost Rider takes this one, it’s time to analyze exactly how and why. We’re going to explore the powers, abilities, strength, speed, and durability of both characters until you can see how we came to our conclusion. We’re going to compare the mainline version of Ghost Rider, Johnny Blaze, and the mainline version of Superman, Clark Kent. If you’re interested in more, stay with us and keep reading!

Powers and abilities

Ghost Rider is a magical being and divine entity, meaning that his powers don’t stem from conventional sources like energy manipulation. He has several notable abilities that are quite frankly overpowered. Ghost Rider’s Penance Stare is most likely his most popular ability that can take down even entities far more powerful than he is, so long as the given entity in question checks all the boxes, like having a soul and feeling guilt. 

Penance Stare is the ability to inflict all the pain an individual has inflicted on the innocent throughout his life. It can prove lethal in some cases but is, in almost every case, highly disabling for an individual. Ghost Rider’s second notable ability is Hellfire manipulation. Hellfire can be so devastating it can burn through the toughest materials in Marvel Universe, even souls themselves. It is said that Hellfire produces flames so hot the temperature is reminiscent of Hell. 

Ghost Rider can also create various constructs with Hellfire, like weapons and his famous Hellcycle. He can manipulate sins, souls, and demonic magic. He has mystical weapons at his disposal that are partly divine party demonic in nature, like a mystical chain. As the King of Hell, Ghost Rider also has Damnation Stare, an ability capable of burning sinners from the inside out. He can also manipulate his own size and perform exorcism when it’s needed (and sin purge when it’s appropriate) 

Superman’s power set is a lot more humble than that of Ghost Rider. Sure, he does have enhanced senses and several types of vision, but this would hardly prove useful in a fight with a demonic entity. Superman has heat vision, capable of melting through any material known to mankind. 

He can use his powerful lungs to create powerful air vortexes and unleash frozen breath on his enemies, capable of freezing objects on a molecular level. As Superman as a character aged, however, there was a necessity to introduce other powers to the mix. Recent versions of Superman can eject massive solar flares with the potential to annihilate everything in existence in a certain radius. However, he doesn’t use those as often due to the nasty side-effect that drains his powers almost completely, leaving him just a bit stronger than a regular human. 

Superman was also exposed to Warworld’s Genesis-powered “white” sun, and it gave him some additional powers and abilities that rendered weight, distance, temperature, and even spacetime meaningless to him. He gained a moderate ability to create limited energy constructs and mechanokinesis. 

Ghost Rider obviously has an advantage here. Even though we only touched upon his basic powers set, Ghost Rider has plenty up his sleeve. The point is that Ghost Rider has magic at his disposal, which is something that Superman is vulnerable to. Fans always think of various ways in which Ghost Rider’s Penance Stare would be able to affect Superman, I don’t think that Penance Stare would work for him (unless we go into severe technicalities), but even if it did, Ghost Rider doesn’t need it. He has plenty of magic to slow down Superman through other means. The point goes to Ghost Rider. 

Points: Ghost Rider (1:0) Superman

Strength and Stamina 

Ghost Rider is a supernatural being, meaning that his body doesn’t work like a regular human body. The limits of his strength and stamina are highly enhanced. On paper, Ghost Rider can lift up to 25 tons. His strength might be uncapped as he regularly lifts even more. The exact limits to Ghost Rider’s strength are unknown.

Ghost Rider’s body also doesn’t produce any fatigue toxins. He doesn’t have to sleep, eat or drink water. He can keep on fighting as long as there are opportunities around for vengeance to be delivered. 

Even in his base form, Superman is among the physically strongest characters in DC Universe. His strength is immeasurable, and it’s estimated that he can lift up 2 billion tons with ease. Superman also has immeasurable stamina and can keep up the fight as long as he has access to yellow solar energy. Even if he losses access to it, his body is perfectly adapted to storing excess solar radiation in his cells, that act like batteries. This largely expands the time he is able to fight. Still, even those reserves aren’t infinite.  

Superman wins the strength point only because of his better feats. In reality, we don’t know how much Ghost Rider can potentially lift, and he has better stamina than Superman. 

Points: Ghost Rider (1:1) Superman

Speed

Ghost Rider has teleportation, portal mastery, and other tricks up his sleeve if he needs to traverse large distances quickly, but this would hardly help him in combat against Superman. Ghost Rider has superhuman agility, reflexes, and reaction times, but he is not in the company of the fastest characters in Marvel Comics. 

He can greatly enhance his speed via Hellcycle if the situation calls for it. 

Superman is not connected to Speed Force, but even without it, he can reach impressive speeds of up to 186,000 miles per second. The most impressive speed feat that Superman has remains the fact that he managed to win some of the races against the Flash, the fastest speedster in DC comics. Superman’s combat speeds aren’t as dramatic as his flying and movement speeds. However, he is often blurred and invisible to the human eye as he fights. He simply has superior reaction times and reflexes.

Everything taken into account, Superman does seem to be faster than Ghost Rider. The point goes to Man of Steel. 

Points: Ghost Rider (1:2) Superman

Durability

Ghost Rider’s durability is complicated. As a mortal man and the host of Spirit of Vegenace, Johnny Blaze is mortal and vulnerable to all regular damage, but once transformed, Ghost Rider is completely immune to the majority of physical damage that one can inflict upon him. 

It is said that only God has the power to deal lethal damage to Zarathos, and even then, he is such an abstract entity that it’s only a matter of time before he returns to life again. Ghost Rider’s other weakness is holy weapons. Ghost Rider is immortal and capable of tanking multiversal levels of damage. 

Superman is also functionally immortal due to his Kryptonian physiology and can tank multiversal damage. Even if something manages to break through his diamond-hard skin, Superman’s fast-acting healing factor will take care of the damage even before Superman manages to register it. Superman is largely vulnerable to the effects of Green Kryptonite which has the potential to kill him. 

Superman is also vulnerable to magic. Although his “weakness” to magic isn’t as drastic as his vulnerability to Green K, it can still hurt him and slow him down. 

Ghost Rider is the more durable of the two since there’s no way that Superman can hurt him as he is not a god. Superman doesn’t have limits on “what or who” can kill him. Anybody can by abusing the situation in the right way. 

Points: Ghost Rider (2:2) Superman

Intelligence

Ghost Rider’s intelligence is classified as being average, but he does have a lot of occult knowledge and has access to mysteries of divine nature. He can also gain knowledge by reading someone’s past through their soul, and he can cleverly utilize this in a fight to gain access to his opponent’s psychological weaknesses. 

Superman is highly intelligent due to his unique brain structure afforded to him by his Kryptonian physiology. His brain is just built differently, allowing him to process information much faster than a regular human can. Superman, however, lacks feats, as the most notable brain in the Justice League seems to be Batman. 

Due to the unique structure of his brain, on paper and in practice, Superman appears to be more intelligent than Ghost Rider. 

Points: Ghost Rider (2:3) Superman

Combat Skills 

Ghost Rider is a skilled and excellent fighter, especially when it comes to utilizing his mystic chain. However, he mostly relies on Penance Stare and Hellfire in combat. He is also an expert stuntman, but this would be regarded as useful in specific fights only. 

Superman has received extensive training in various forms of combat, including boxing, Jujitsu, Krav-Maga, wrestling, stick-fighting, and swordsmanship, making him an excellent hand-to-hand fighter. Even though he is not considered to be among the best fighters or martial artists in the DC, he is still, due to his biological advantages, hard to defeat.  

Superman has more skills, but Ghost Rider has better weapons at his disposal and fewer qualms about using them. The point goes to Ghost Rider. 

Points: Ghost Rider (3:3) Superman

Superman vs. Ghost Rider: Who Wins? 

Even though Superman has all the physical advantages in the world, Ghost Rider would still win this fight. Ghost Rider is an indestructible, magical being that punishes the wicked. Even though Superman is not evil and most likely wouldn’t be affected by Penance Stare, Ghost Rider can incinerate him with Hellfire. 

Ghost Rider also doesn’t hold down when he is fighting, meaning that he is guided by pure hot rage. Superman has nothing to counter him and most likely isn’t able to at all. Ghost Rider is nowhere near the most powerful character that Superman fought, but he does have a specific power set that can easily abuse all of Superman’s weak sides. 

Who do you think would win in this fight? Let us know in the comments!