All things DC
Could Superman terraform Mars?
Given his incredible powers, could Superman do something our technology couldn't do, but that was constructive, such as terraform one of our nearest neighboring planets?
What kind of effort would it take and could he single-handedly make Mars habitable enough for humanity to emigrate there in a year?
https://www.quora.com/Could-Superman-terraform-Mars/answer/Thaddeus-Howze




My first thought when seeing this title was "Why would he terraform Mars? He'd be building on the graves of J'onn's people!"
"All of this thought-experiment precludes the existence of any other metahuman beings on Earth."
Oh.
I liked the way you broke it down into what it would take to terraform Mars, and while there is a lot that Superman could do, it's not a one-person task. Even if that person is Superman.
You made a mention at the end of the article about the Justice League helping him handle it, which of course was not a part of your analysis because that would be one heck of an adventure trying to account for every single one-off member (or super obscure regular member) of the JL. But it did make me start thinking about the political ramifications of the terraforming of Mars.
Removing J'onn J'onzz and his people from the equation for the moment, Mars itself is considered "international waters" (Thank you The Martian for this knowledge - and yeah, that space pirate thing checks out - mostly: http://news.unl.edu/newsrooms/unltoday/article/how-realistic-is-the-martian-unl-experts-weigh-in/). But anything built on Mars would be the property of whoever owns it. And if the Justice League were the ones to build, fund, or oversee the building of some Martian colony, who would own it? Would the Justice League own it? How would the nations feel about that?
And placing J'onn back into the equation, he's (occasionally) the sole survivor of Mars, and Mars used to be a sovereign nation. TWO sovereign nations if it's a continuity that differentiates between the white and green martians. And the whites might still be around. What sort of political ramifications are there in THAT?
Let me acknowledge you efforts in reading the article. I really appreciate that. I write these things answering questions on Quora but over time I find they appeal to some comic writing urge that I am trying to purge by creating these weird thought-experiments.
As to a continuity where the need actually arose, I suspect if Jonn was around, he would be the first one in line to help rescue as much of the Human race as he could, international issues would take a back seat to saving lives.
Besides, once the Earth was destroyed, I suspect we wouldn't have to worry about those old treaties, no would we? :)