10 Most Powerful Armors in DC Comics, Ranked

Superheroes and villains don’t always rely on raw superpowers; sometimes, they’ll have technology pick up the slack. Although folks tend to focus on Marvel’s armored characters like Iron Man and War Machine, DC has plenty of battlesuits that can rival and even surpass their best armors. Indeed, in DC Comics, there are a plethora of armors that can turn an ordinary person into a virtual god. And these armors aren’t exclusive to powerless characters like Batman or Lex Luthor, as even powerhouses like Superman will don advanced armors of alien origin to give themselves an extra boost in the fight against evil. These are the most powerful suits of armor forged across DC Comics’ infinite cosmos.

Battlesuits often change the tide of a conflict, granting the wearer greater strength, durability, and a plethora of weapons. This list will rank these armors based on how much of a power boost they give the wearer. Therefore, things like Captain Atom’s containment suit won’t be included.

10) Darkstar Exo-Mantle

The Darkstars are a lethal intergalactic police force created by the Controllers, the cousins of the Guardians of the Universe. The Controllers made the Darkstars so that they could overthrow the Green Lantern Corps and become the new peacekeepers of the universe. Members of the Darkstars are given powerful Exo-Mantle armors that give them super strength, speed, flight, and energy blasters. The Exo-Mantle’s most terrifying ability is that it can disrupt the energy of Green Lanterns, allowing them to obliterate their weakened constructs effortlessly. The Darkstar’s numbers, powerful Exo-Mantle armors, and lethal approach to justice led to them waging a war against the Green Lanterns in which they almost won. Even though they ultimately lost, the Darkstars’ Exo-Mantle still allowed them to kill countless Green Lanterns during the conflict.

9) Insider Suit

Batman may be the most famous non-powered member of the Justice League, but he once had a suit that gave him all the abilities of his teammates. After coming back from his supposed death during Infinite Crisis, Batman donned a new suit so that he could inconspicuously monitor Gotham before announcing his return. The Insider Suit provides Batman with superhuman strength, flight, access to the Speed Force, green energy beams, invisibility and intangibility. In addition, the suit allows him to detect if a person is lying, and to shoot lasers from eye lenses. This suit is also tough enough to withstand an explosion from a missile. The Insider Suit may not match the power of any specific Justice Leaguer, but its versatility and strength are undeniable.

8) Justice Buster

Where the Insider Suit gives Batman all the abilities of the Justice League, the Justice Buster gives the Dark Knight the power to take down all his teammates single-handedly. Deployed when the Joker brainwashed the League, Batman’s Justice Buster incorporates the Caped Crusader’s numerous contingency plans for his fellow heroes. These countermeasures include instantly dehydrating Aquaman, putting Wonder Woman into a deep sleep, overriding Cyborg’s nervous system, and making the Flash slip on a frictionless substance. The most impressive feature of the Justice Buster is that its knuckles are packed with miniaturized red suns to depower Superman. Although the Jokerized Superman ultimately dismantled the Justice Buster, the armor still managed to defeat almost every member of the Justice League.

7) Booster Gold’s Battlesuit

Booster Gold may be an idiot and a showboat, but his Battlesuit is among the most sophisticated pieces of technology in DC Comics. Hailing from the 25th century, security guard Michael Carter stole the Battlesuit from a museum. He used it to travel back in time to the modern day to get rich as a superhero. The Battlesuit can fire energy beams and gives Booster the strength to contend with Doomsday. The suit’s built-in force field is so tough that it can protect Booster from telepathic attacks and even the subatomic destruction of the Earth. He can entrap people in the force field and crush them into nothingness. And of course, the Battlesuit grants Booster unlimited access to the timestream.

6) Lex Luthor’s Warsuit

When designing a suit for the sole purpose of killing the most powerful being alive, you must ensure that your armor can take and deliver immense damage. Lex Luthor’s Warsuit is the pinnacle of his technological brilliance, as it regularly contends with Superman’s powers. The Warsuit is driven by a New God supercomputer and a near-unlimited energy source called a Mother Box. The suit is armed to the teeth with missiles, blades, a teleporter, Kryptonite laser guns, and a device that traps people in two-dimensional space. Although Superman always ends up destroying the Warsuit, it’s still strong enough to withstand a planet’s explosion. It also has allowed Luthor to fight on par with interstellar beings like Brainiac, Larfleeze, and Doomsday.

5) Superman’s Unchained Armor

Superman seems like the last person in the world who would need a suit of armor, given his near-unparalleled strength. However, when General Sam Lane arrived at the Fortress of Solitude with an army and robots with weapons capable of killing Superman, the Man of Steel suited up. The Unchained Armor makes Superman even stronger and more durable, as it can deflect anti-Kryptonian weapons. The armor also comes with a powerful hammer and a shield for enhanced offense and defense. It is no small feat for a suit having the capability to give the Man of Steel a power boost, but the Unchained Armor managed to accomplish this task.

4) Hellbat Armor

The Hellbat Armor was forged to be Batman’s ultimate weapon when facing off against insurmountable odds. Every member of the Justice League contributed to the Hellbat Armor’s creation, imbuing it with magic and alien technology. The result was a suit that allowed the Dark Knight to tear through the armies of Apokolips and fight on par with Darkseid himself. The Hellbat Armor has many incredible features, including flight, energy beams, invisibility, shapeshifting, and the ability to transform its cape into a giant swarm of bats. The biggest drawback of the Hellbat Armor is that it draws power from the wearer’s metabolism and will kill them if it’s used for too long. Still, the Hellbat Armor gives Batman the power to contend with villains capable of effortlessly obliterating planets.

3) Entropy Aegis

Steel has always been one of DC’s most iconic armored superheroes, but in the storyline “Our Worlds at War,” he gets a new suit that’s beyond anything he’s ever built. Created by Darkseid, the Entropy Aegis is the pinnacle of Apokolips technology merged with a near-indestructible probe belonging to the cosmic being Imperiex. After Superman rejected wearing it, Steel gladly stepped up to don this cosmic armor in the fight against Imperiex. While the suit does gradually turn the wearer into a brainwashed puppet of Darkseid, its power is near-unmatched. The Entropy Aegis can teleport anywhere in the universe, fly near the speed of light, absorb and reflect any energy attack, fire powerful energy beams, and shrug off full-power blasts from Darkseid’s Omega Beams.

2) Final Batsuit

Forged in the Sixth Dimension, the Final Batsuit gives the Dark Knight the power of a god. Batman discovered that his Sixth Dimensional counterpart created the Final Batsuit and took it for a spin. This gigantic mecha armor is constructed out of Element X, a material made of pure imagination that grants the wearer potent reality-warping abilities. The Final Batsuit can easily defeat the entire Justice League, thanks to its limitless supply of energy and ability to manifest weapons out of nothingness. This armor also allows Batman to rewrite minds to the cellular level, transmute matter, teleport anywhere in existence, and telekinetically move dozens of stars light-years away. With the Final Batsuit, all of the Caped Crusader’s thoughts become reality.

1) Superboy-Prime’s Solar Armor

Superboy-Prime is one of the most powerful and dangerous beings in the cosmos since he regularly threatens all of existence. Even when it seemed like the multiverse was safe when Superboy-Prime was imprisoned and depowered, he eventually escaped and developed a suit that made him even more ridiculously overpowered. The Solar Armor is modeled after the containment suit of the multiversal villain, the Anti-Monitor, and is nearly indestructible. And as the name suggests, the Solar Armor offers Superboy-Prime a limitless supply of yellow sunlight energy, boosting his reality-fracturing strength to new heights while also removing his weakness to red sunlight. When in this suit, there is practically nothing in all of creation that can challenge Superboy-Prime.

What do you think? Leave a Comment below and join the conversation in the ComicBook Forum!

Superman’s 5 Most Powerful Inventions, Ranked