The most powerful optical emissions from lightning have been described as “superbolts” since the 1970s. In 2019, Holzworth et al. (2019) applied the superbolt label to the most energetic Radio Frequency (RF) emissions measured by the World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN). In this study, we compare the WWLLN energies to optical measurements by the photodiode detector (PDD) on the Fast On-orbit Recording of Transient Events (FORTE) satellite and the Geostationary Lightning Mappers (GLMs) on NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) to assess whether WWLLN high energy events coincide with optical superbolts. We find no overlap between traditional superbolts and WWLLN high energy events. Optical superbolts are not energetic to WWLLN, while WWLLN superbolts are not optically bright. Additionally, the top WWLLN sources occur in a different meteorological context than superbolts. Despite some similarities in their overall global patterns of occurrence, WWLLN high energy events correspond to a different phenomenon.