Warning: Spoilers for Action Comics #1050 ahead!Superman’s time on Warworld has left him noticeably stronger than before, but his latest fight against Lex Luthor reveals his new strength to border nigh-on godhood. Although authors have toyed with giving Superman wild arrays of power before, his current strength level places him at the highest echelons of the DC Universe. Lex’s latest scheme is to have Earth look to himself and Superman as gods, but it seems Superman has again beaten him to the punch.

Although Superman’s original power set was fairly simple (speed and strength), subsequent publications added to his repertoire throughout the years until the Silver Age of Comics had him boasting an increasingly unlikely array of abilities, with “Super Ventriloquism” and “Super Hypnosis” being among the most ludicrous. Modern-day Superman’s powers have been largely defined as strength, speed, flight, enhanced senses, heat vision, and cold breath, but events leading up to the Warworld Saga have seen the Man of Steel sapped of his powers. It’s only after Mongul’s defeat that Superman is exposed to the energies of a white sun – younger and more vibrant than Earth’s yellow star. This resulting energy boost has revitalized Superman like never before.

Related: DC Is Finally Giving Superman Enemies Worthy of His Power

Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Tom Taylor, Joshua Williamson, Mike Perkins, Clayton Henry, Nick Dragotta, and Frank Martin’s Action Comics #1050 see a world returned to not knowing Superman’s secret identity – courtesy of Lex Luthor murdering Manchester Black to use his psychic powers. The ensuing confrontation between Luthor and the Man of Steel takes the dueling pair all the way to the moon, where Luthor teleports Superman nearly five thousand light-years away. To Luthor’s shock, a wormhole immediately opens up next to him and Superman steps out, delivering a chilling declaration before dismantling Lex’s battle suit with a single touch: “concepts like weight, distance, temperature, even spacetime have largely lost their meaning for me. In moments, I can cross distances that cease to be distance.”

Superman’s New Strength Transcends Time, Space, and Matter.

What Superman is describing is tantamount to him being able to defy or manipulate physical reality at will. True, superpowers in general defy physics as we understand them, but what here Superman mentions essentially being able to manipulate the fundamental building blocks of physical reality at will. He is already able to see through the electromagnetic spectrum, while weight is a byproduct of the force of gravity and temperature is a byproduct of energy. The kind of power Superman suggests he now commands is only a hair short of the kind displayed by Watchmen‘s Dr. Manhattan, a being infamous for transcending reality as mortal minds can comprehend it.

So far, Superman has not displayed these powers openly to the world; his enhanced abilities were only suggested when he took on the New Gods Kalibak and Orion at the same time. It is only in the face of Luthor’s most brazen act against him that Clark reveals just how strong he has become. While his son Jon takes up the mantle of Earth’s defender, Superman seems poised to become one of the cosmic forces of the DC Universe.

Action Comics #1050 is now available from DC Comics.