7 Marvel Characters Who’ve Gotten Weaker Since Their Debuts

Typically, long-running fictional characters get exponentially stronger over time. Power creep is the phenomenon where characters are either massively enhanced or replaced by stronger versions, to the point where the originals are nothing in comparison. For example, when Superman first debuted, he was only able to leap an eighth of a mile, but now he can fly to the edge of the universe and back. In the endless stories of superhero comics, the threats tend to get bigger, badder, and more powerful, meaning that the heroes need to follow suit to save the day. Almost every hero and villain is stronger than they were at their debut, but not all of them.

As common as power creep is, sometimes characters are so powerful that they need to be nerfed to keep the story going. Today, we’re going to look at seven Marvel characters who have actually gotten weaker over the years. They may have had an upswing in power at some point, but at the end of the day, their past selves would pound them into the dust. These heroes and villains once stood at the top of the world, but nowadays, they’re living in the shadow of their past glory. So, without further ado, let’s inspect these fluctuating power levels.

7) Wolverine

The X-Men’s most feral mutant is definitely stronger than he was when he was introduced, given that he was a normal human with clawed gloves, but he’s nowhere near the peak of his abilities. Wolverine’s healing factor is one of the best in the business, but it’s gotten a lot weaker than it was in the ‘90s and 2000s. That was the peak of Wolverine’s popularity and power, and he demonstrated it by taking punishment like surviving a nuclear explosion twice and reconstructing himself from just a skeleton in Wolverine (2003) #43. 

More recent years have seen his healing factor lowered to a more human-plus level. This was especially true in the Krakoan Era, where Wolveirne dying dozens of times was a plot point in X-Force (2019). Wolverine began dying to laser beams and being decapitated, once killed by Beast with a special knife. He’s still the best there is at what he does, but Wolverine can’t reconstitute from a dry skeleton anymore. At the bare minimum, he needs most of his muscles to survive, and even then, he’s not invincible.

6) Rick Jones

Much like Wolverine, Rick is technically stronger than he was at his debut. He began as the Hulk’s normal, human sidekick, but Rick quickly became one of the most powerful and versatile heroes in Marvel. He’s been mentally bonded to the Hulk, letting him control the Jade Giant, been the Hulk, been Captain Marvel’s human counterpart, been the first to host the Destiny Force, been his own gamma-mutate as A-Bomb, and, most recently, been the host to the Toxin symbiote. 

At the end of the day, Rick is a human being, but the amount of power he has jumps up and down like a heart rate monitor attached to a track star. He’s Captain Spider now, but compared to his time as the Hulk and owner of the Destiny Force, he’s not even in the same ballpark. Rick will always inevitably return to being a normal human, just like it’s inevitable that he will gain a new swath of superpowers from somewhere. Still, I doubt it’ll compare to what he’s done in the past.

5) Franklin Richards

Franklin is one of the most powerful people in the Marvel Universe. His ability to manipulate reality slowly emerged, starting as visions of the future and subtle alterations to make things go the way he wanted. At his peak, he fought Mad Celestials with a previously-dead Galactus as his herald, and remade the multiverse one universe at a time. He’s been depowered nearly a dozen times over the years, but his latest and greatest depowering is at his own hands. 

Franklin is destined to be the final survivor of the Eighth Cosmos and become a celestial being in the next, but he’s not ready to handle that responsibility. As of right now, he’s just a teenager, and he wants to live like he’s not the universe’s strongest being. He’s repressed his own powers and made himself forget he did that, making everyone think they fizzled out. He only remembers and regains his powers for one day a year, and then they vanish again. Franklin is still, technically, just as powerful as before, but to the world, he’s just a normal teenager.

4) Beyonder

When the Beyonder was first introduced, he was easily the most powerful being that Marvel had ever seen. His first act was to abduct all the heroes and villains of the world, Galactus included, and drop them on a special planet. The gathered captives watched the Beyond wipe an entire galaxy from existence with hardly the wave of his hand, and he was presented as omnipotent and entirely unstoppable. He compared the Marvel Universe to a single drop of water, where he stood as a true being that was, for lack of a better term, beyond their comprehension. Heck, he shrugged off an attack he said could have wiped out a billion universes without damage. He could do literally anything he wished.

When Secret Wars (1984) proved to be one of Marvel’s most popular events, they naturally wanted to bring the Beyonder back, but desperately needed to tone him down to do it. By the time of Secret Wars III, the Beyonder’s power was lowered to match Molecule Man’s, and both were revealed to be half of a failed Cosmic Cube. The Beyonder is still definitely powerful, but he’s nowhere near the Multiverse-level threat he was at his introduction.

3) Sentry

Sentry was pitched as the most powerful superhero that Marvel forgot. His tagline was being the man with the power of a million exploding suns, and his original series did everything in its power to prove that claim true. The Sentry could rewrite reality to anything he wished, such as overpowering and calming the Hulk or fighting Galactus to a standstill. When his evil side, the Void, was unleashed, it threatened to erase the entire universe. Even the combined might of all of Earth’s heroes couldn’t stand against him, so the Sentry was forced to wipe all knowledge of his powers from everyone’s mind to ensure the Void could never return.

Cut to the current Sentry, who is practically a poster child for dying. Where he could once bat the Avengers aside with a glare, Sentry now regularly dies in battle against every strong foe he faces. He fought World-Breaker Hulk to a standstill, but while he fell unconscious, the Hulk stood back up, ready to keep going. Knull murdered Sentry with no problem, and while that could just be showing how strong Knull is, it doesn’t explain how Thor was able to kill the Sentry when the golden hero worked for the Dark Avengers. Sentry is supposed to be nearly unstoppable, but in practice, he’s very, very stoppable.

2) Spider-Man

Spider-Man’s powers have remained largely the same since his debut. He may be a bit physically stronger now, but his powerset is generally the same as it was when he first took center stage in Amazing Fantasy #15. However, one major aspect of Spider-Man has been nerfed, even though it remains one of his primary powers to this day. Originally, Peter’s Spider-Sense could do basically anything it needed to. Everyone knows that it functions as a preternatural danger sense, but back in the day, it also did a whole lot more. It let Spider-Man listen to and track radio waves and detect crimes occurring blocks away from his location. Heck, it even let Spider-Man track the Chameleon across the city for no discernible reason in Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #1.

The Spider-Sense functioned as the ultimate way to get Spider-Man into the plot for the issue. If Peter needed to find something, know something, or be directed to somewhere, his Spider-Sense would flare up. It was a catch-all for everything the writer needed it to be. Sure, it has plenty of additional use-cases now, but it can’t do nearly as much as it could before. Spider-Man might be using it to dodge attacks that Quicksilver couldn’t, but he isn’t tuning into the radio anymore.

1) Ghost Rider

If there were an award for the most-nerfed character of all time, Ghost Rider should receive first, second, and third place. His most famous and powerful ability is the Penance Stare. The Rider looks into the eyes of the guilty and forces them to experience all the pain and suffering they’ve caused throughout their lives. This regularly sank people into deep, traumatized depression, and, if they were evil enough, could kill them. And yet, whenever Ghost Rider tries to use it today, the person is always immune. Not only is a laundry list of people immune to this instant-defeat beam, but the reasoning behind it makes zero sense.

I can understand the Penance Stare not working on beings without souls or celestial beings like Galactus, but when the punishment beam doesn’t work on Thanos, the Punisher, and Doctor freaking Doom, it’s utter insanity. The modern Penance Stare doesn’t work on people who feel no guilt, but that goes against the purpose of the power! It is explicitly meant to force people who felt no guilt to experience the pain they caused, and it doesn’t cause regret; it attacks with that pain. The literal point of the Penance Stare is to punish the evil, but you’re immune if you’re too evil. That’s the worst nerf in history, and I will always be mad about it.

Which superhero do you love that has been massively weakened since a high point in their past? Leave a comment in the comment section below and join the conversation on the ComicBook Forums!

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