How did Superman hear/detect Lois being shot recently?

[SteamTeck]

Ok fair enough.  You remind of Larry Niven's old stuff on the Man of Steel. So he's actually creeped back up to many of his pre crisis power levels but doesn't have the superior mindset of the pre crisis guy now?
    I know  I'm in the minority here but lightspeed is a little much for me and moon shoving I just can't can't handle. I will admit traveling FTL would open up tons of new (old) storylines but I prefer a guy who could  defeat the hulk or Thor with some trouble not with a hand flick. Moving planets is just so beyond as to NOT be inpressive while supporting a huge falling cliff ala "Another Nail" is very impressive.
      One of my favorite post reboot moments was when Superman had to stop a crashing Concord and had to guide it in to a safe landing just not stop and lift it. The weight and momentum were so great that he couldn't just muscle his way through. That's the power level I tend to think of him at.

[NotSuper]

This was mentioned over at the Superman Homepage in the Ask Eddie forum. Berganza stated that Rucka had Superman "sense" Lois was in danger and didn't actually hear her. It was more of a hunch. Anyway, that's the official position.

Personally, I liked how Supreme's enhanced senses were explained in Supreme: The Story of the Year. He doesn't actually "hear" things far away, he extends his essense.

[RedSunOfKrypton]

He doesn't actually "hear" things far away, he extends his essense.

Ahem, like a laser listener, props to me.   Anyhoo, that "essence" terminology seems a touch on the metaphysical side to me though, more like something that should come from Dr. Fate than from Superman.

[Daybreaker]

I agree with the idea that Superman's powers, especially his senses, rely in part on some kind of field (which might resemble either "essence" or "a laser listener" depending on how he's using it) that apparently is capable of transmitting information faster than the speed of light.  It probably explains to some extent how he's able to generate more energy than he could possibly be absorbing from the sun.

Here's a question -- has the post-Crisis Superman ever used any super-senses other than sight and hearing?  I think that there have been a few references to him having a really good sense of smell, but that could be explained as just part of an overall physical augmentation due to Kryptonian genetic engineering.

Y'know what would clinch it?  If he couldn't hear through lead at great distances.

[NotSuper]

He doesn't actually "hear" things far away, he extends his essense.

Ahem, like a laser listener, props to me.   Anyhoo, that "essence" terminology seems a touch on the metaphysical side to me though, more like something that should come from Dr. Fate than from Superman.

Keep in mind that we're talking about Supreme, though. He's heavily based on Superman, yet he certainly isn't an exact copy.

[Daybreaker]

I think there is a certain metaphysical aspect to Superman's powers, though.  Not in the sense that his powers are "magical," they're meant to be based on the physical laws of the universe in which Superman resides.  Even so, I'm one of those people that thinks that the material world is subject to the immaterial world more than the other way around.

Superman: The Movie was big on metaphysics, when you really look at it.  Even the fact that Superman gets his powers from the Sun seems at least symbolic to me, when you think about the ways in which human beings have always deified the sun.  From a certain point of view, you could say that Superman's transition from Rao to Sol is a metaphor for the transition from Judaism to Christianity, or from Christianity to Islam.  He's a religious transformation in action for the people around him, a higher power that is one of them and yet not one of them.

There are places where physics and metaphysics overlap, and I think Superman is in there somewhere.