Movie : Most powerful superheroes

The most powerful superheroes must balance their weaknesses against their amazing powers to add up to a net gain. Considering that every superhero is a flawed human (excluding Superman, of course), this is not a simple equation. Strength, intelligence, resourcefulness, and ability to manipulate the environment around them are all important features of power, but they must be examined against their vulnerabilities, their character flaws and their willingness to exploit their powers. Given those criteria, let’s look at my personal list of the top ten most powerful superheroes.

10. The Green Lantern. The Green Lantern gets his powers from a magic ring. Okay, later it’s a technological invention, but let’s not quibble. The Green Lantern’s powers are almost limitless. He can do anything he wants with that stupid ring. Fly at the speed of light, emit kryptonite radiation, time travel, punch, cut, shield. But he has a few weaknesses. First, the ring only operates if the user has the right kind of will-power. It’s also vulnerable to the color yellow. The reason I put GL so low on this list, considering how powerful he is, is that his powers come from a single object. Take the ring away, and he’s nothing.

9. Hulk. Hulk Smash. Okay, he’s super powerful, but he’s really dumb. He can’t fly, exactly. He is a super brick, but a brick can cause a lot of damage. For all his power, though, his lack of intelligence will always relegate him to the bottom of any stack. Any other superhero can defeat the Hulk by just using a little brain power.

8. Dr. X. The tutelar leader of the X-Men has the power of psionic control. He can even force his will upon others. He has telekinesis, telepathy. He can warp perceptions. This guy would be the most powerful of all superheroes, with the ability to turn any superhero’s power against himself, if only he weren’t a paraplegic. That’s got to be a bummer. Infinite power of the universe, can’t walk. He also has a dark side that could be manipulated against him.

7. The Flash. The Flash is the fastest man alive. In most of the races between him and Superman, they usually result in a tie, but the Wally West Flash has beaten the man of steel soundly. Some of the Flashes even have the power to control their atomic structure to vibrate through walls or melt themselves into another form. Flash has no inherent weaknesses outside of his won ability. You see, at speeds faster than though, weird things happen, as you can imagine. In Crisis on Infinite Earths, Flash went so fast he actually went back in time and became the bolt of lightening that gave him his powers. That kind of tinkering with causality can screw you up good.

6. Thor. He’s a god. But, since that’s not enough, he gets a hammer and a belt of strength. But he is not immortal, nor is he invulnerable. He is limited in his power, and he is hampered by the need to consume golden apples to power-up occasionally. But if you shoot him with enough guns, laser beams, missiles, and whatever else you’ve got handy, he too will die.

5. Captain Marvel. This superhero was given the moniker The Big Red Cheese, and it’s appropriate. It’s hard to believe that in the 40′s he was more popular the any other superhero, outselling even Superman. He has great wisdom, strength, power. The Billy Batson incarnation got his powers when he said “Shazam.” But he was not as powerful as many other supers. He only had super-sonic speed. His strength was really on the par with Thor or Hulk. And, let’s be clear about this, he really was young Billy Batson, so he is vulnerable to any of the very human flaws of his alter ego.

4. Superman. Superman is the man of steel. He is nearly as fast as the Flash. He is stronger than Hulk. Remember what Batman says about him in Superman/Batman #3, Batman thinks, “It is a remarkable dichotomy. In many ways, Clark is the most human of us all. Then…he shoots fire from the skies, and it is difficult not to think of him as a god. And how fortunate we all are that it does not occur to him.” Superman, though, has tremendous vulnerabilities, weaknesses that take him out of the running for most powerful superhero. He is vulnerable to all the varieties of kryptonite. Of course, after the Crisis on Infinite Earths, that was limited, and now kryptonite can only be found in its green form naturally. But that’s still a pretty big handicap. Superman is also vulnerable to magic so that a little magical imp can give him headaches. His biggest weakness may be his lack of a ruthless streak. He’ll drop anything to save Lois or Jimmy. He won’t kill anyone, no matter how much they deserve it.

3. Batman. Batman is the world’s greatest detective. He is a gazillionaire, he has trained himself into the most dangerous human on earth (as noted by Superman). He can kick Superman’s heiney any time he wants by formulating kryptonite and putting it in his bat suit, a rocket or a super-soaker (get it, SUPER soaker). He’s also ruthless. Batman likes hurting his enemies. Batman’s greatest weakness is that he’s very human. He’s a borderline schizophrenic, he has trouble with commitment issues, he’s too enamored with sidekicks and he has this whole creepy bat fixation. And he’s mortal. But he’s still more powerful than people give him credit for being.

2. Dr. Strange. It’s unfortunate that his comics were always rather cheesy and under-written. He is the Harry Potter and Lord Voldimort of comics. His ability to twist every reasonable feature of the universe to his own will makes him incredibly powerful. No one can stand up to him in a fair fight, because, let’s face it, magic is not playing fair. I’ll turn you into a newt. There, I win.

1. Doctor Manhattan. In the seminal series The Watchmen, Doctor Manhattan, is able to control and experience matter at a subatomic level. He has psionic powers greater than Dr. X. He is truly invulnerable, better that Superman. He exists outside the realm of space-time, so he can see into the future. This makes him invulnerable to magic, if you think about it for a moment, for he is outside of the realm of the physical world, and magic is all about manipulating the physical world. In truth, his limits are never explored. His only weakness is that he isn’t tied to this world at all. If it weren’t for his love for Silk Spectre, there wouldn’t be anything for him to desire at all. He becomes so inhuman that the physical world ceass to matter to him.

Well, I think that this list surely defines the powerful superheroes, but I think it also reinforces how lucky we are that these guys don’t really exist.

Learn more about this author, John Devera.