Darkseid is one of the most fearsome villains in all of fiction, standing as the ultimate tyrant of the DC Universe. As the ruler of Apokolips and the embodiment of pure evil, his power transcends the physical plane, making him nearly impossible to defeat in conventional ways.
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His true form exists outside of time and space in the Fourth World, meaning most encounters with him are merely battles against his avatars. Even those avatars are godlike, wielding the Omega Effect, a devastating energy that can erase beings from existence, bend reality, or trap souls in eternal torment. Even the strongest anime characters would struggle against an entity who isn’t bound by conventional rules of life or death.
7. Ryuk (Death Note)
In Death Note, Ryuk exists outside human morality and operates under Shinigami law — a plane that doesn’t directly obey our physics, time, or divine hierarchies. In his world, possession of the Death Note gives one the ability to kill any human whose name and face they know. Ryuk, as the Death Note’s original owner, holds this power absolutely and indefinitely. If the Death Note recognizes Darkseid’s avatar as a valid target, it’s game over. Even if his true form continues to exist in the Fourth World, killing his avatar would render him powerless in the physical realm, effectively neutralizing him.
6. Lelouch vi Britannia (Code Geass)
Lelouch, known by his alias Zero, possesses the Power of Geass, specifically the “Power of Absolute Obedience.” With a single glance, he can compel anyone to do exactly what he commands — once per target, but with perfect control. On paper, Lelouch stands no chance against Darkseid’s multiversal existence, Omega Beams, and dominion over life and anti-life itself. And yet, here’s where the argument turns fascinating. Darkseid’s central flaw is his need for control, his obsession with bending free will to the Anti-Life Equation. Lelouch’s entire existence — his philosophy, his ultimate sacrifice — is the antithesis of that. Lelouch won his world not by ruling it forever, but by dying to free it. In a way, he embodies the triumph of human defiance over godlike oppression. If anyone could outthink Darkseid, it would be through ideological warfare, not brute force.
5. Anos Voldigoad (The Misfit of Demon King Academy)
Anos’s strength isn’t confined to physical might. He manipulates reincarnation, causality, dimensional barriers, and existence itself. He’s casually shattered time-space spells, revived others (and himself) from total erasure, and nullified attacks that rewrite reality. If his power scales infinitely as shown, it’s not absurd to think he could challenge or even erase Darkseid’s manifested form by cutting through his essence as an “unreasonable concept.” His power system isn’t bound by DC’s cosmology. However, taking down the true Darkseid — the conceptual essence beyond all worlds — would require Anos’s “unreason” to transcend conceptual boundaries across omniverses. It’s not an automatic win, but Anos’s absurd feats make him one of the very few anime characters who might actually stand a chance.
4. Zeno (Dragon Ball Super)
Zeno is the supreme ruler of the multiverse in Dragon Ball. Despite his childlike demeanor and innocent personality, he wields the ultimate power: the ability to erase anything and everything from existence, including universes, timelines, and even gods. Unlike Darkseid, whose power is tied to his avatars and his connection to the Fourth World, Zeno’s power is absolute and instantaneous. Critics might argue that Zeno’s childlike mind and lack of tactical awareness could make him vulnerable to Darkseid’s intellect and manipulation. Darkseid is, after all, a master strategist who has outwitted gods and heroes alike. But Zeno’s simplicity is precisely what makes him so dangerous. He doesn’t overthink or hesitate — if he perceives something as a threat, he erases it.
3. Arceus (Pokémon)
According to canonical sources across the Pokémon games and anime, Arceus created Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina — the gods of time, space, and antimatter respectively — then withdrew, allowing its creation to evolve. That puts Arceus conceptually above even cosmic order; it’s the prime mover. It has demonstrated universal-scale energy manipulation, can survive in the void before time, and is said to awaken when reality itself is in peril. In a battle between the Lord of Apokolips and the Alpha Pokémon, Arceus’s divine might would likely prevail.
2. Saitama (One Punch Man)
In the world of One Punch Man, Saitama isn’t defined by training numbers or cosmic feats; he’s defined by narrative absurdity. Saitama doesn’t follow logic. His entire character is written to disregard universal consistency. If Darkseid represents the oppressive inevitability of evil, Saitama represents the impossibility of being defeated. Against him, all narrative tension dies instantly. No matter how complex the foe, the punch lands, the fight ends, and Saitama forgets what he was fighting for.
1. Featherine Augustus Aurora (Umineko When They Cry)
Featherine is revealed to be a witch who perceives all existence as a narrative — one she can revise, rewrite, or abandon if the story bores her. She holds perfect awareness across infinite layers of fiction, recognizing every world as part of a tapestry of stories within stories. Featherine doesn’t need to overpower Darkseid’s essence because she can simply overwrite the story in which he exists.
If Darkseid embodies the idea of oppression, Featherine can edit the script so that “Darkseid never existed” or “Darkseid’s concept resolves peacefully.” If we take this too literally in cross-universal terms, Featherine’s victory might feel like cheating, and that’s fair. Her power only functions because Umineko treats story and reality as the same continuum. But even within that logic, she’s operating from a higher narrative dimension than Darkseid. He may span endless universes, but she spans endless fictions of universes. And the moment reality becomes “fictional,” it’s hers to restructure.
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