Superman topped surveys of the world's greatest roller coasters for several straight years after it went into operation. These days, among hardcore coaster freaks, it's been a bit overshadowed by other types of ride (one of them, Wicked Cyclone, is just 700 feet away), but this hypercoaster is still an extraordinary experience that must not be missed.

Simply visually, it dominates the park. The overbuilt appearance of the truss structure under the lift hill makes it look even more colossal than it is. Going up, you get gorgeous views of the river and the park and hear John Williams' stirring Superman theme playing on speakers mounted by the track. The first drop is a steep 220-foot plunge directly into an underground tunnel. There's another huge hill, then a tall overbanked turnaround into a lower returning section with powerful ejector airtime and a bit of simple cutout theming to create near-miss effects.

In the second half of the ride, Superman continues on past the station into a twister section with big, powerful helixes (pouring on the positive Gs here) and a second underground tunnel. The last act is a series of airtime-filled bunny hills, cutting diagonally through the tangle of twister track to a short and surprisingly sudden brake run at the station. The ride delivers to the very end.

Some fans complain about the bulky lap restraints, but I think that to some extent that's just because the ride used to have much more minimal ones that were changed to these after a tragic accident. I did not find them too cumbersome--they're not really that different from the ones on Wicked Cyclone. To my mind just about any big coaster that doesn't put you in over-the-shoulder restraints is a win.

The one bad thing about it is that it's such a big draw that the queue to ride it can be brutal (and provides a whole different type of fear under pandemic conditions, but, you know, if you're going to Six Flags at all these days you should be prepared for this). This is the one ride where I'd consider buying FlashPass just to get on it, or at least put some thought into a strategy for minimizing time in the queue.