One of the coolest aspects of superheroes are their superpowers. A huge part of the fantasy of them is watching these people with incredible powers do incredible things that would never be possible in the real world, and comic books love to push the very boundary of that power. If superpowers are cool, then extra strong superpowers must be even more cool, one could say. Creating new threats only gets more difficult as heroes get stronger and beat strong villains over time, so new characters have to be made that seem even more impossibly strong than before. Marvel and DC have given us some of the most creatively powered and strongest characters ever thought up, and yet somehow, they keep losing.
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These heroes can shatter mountains with their pinkies or cross the universe in a blink, but even with godlike power, they can get their butts beat by someone. Even the strongest, most unbeatable heroes ever to take up a mask have lost a fight at one point or another, even when they really shouldn’t. So today we’re going to look at ten superheroes who are so strong they shouldn’t ever lose a single fight, but do. Repeatedly.
10) Iceman
A synonym for untapped potential is Bobby Drake, because there is effectively no limit to what Iceman is capable of if he let himself go all out. He’s an Omega Level mutant with the power to freeze anything, his powers even working down to a molecular level. Once, Bobby was driven out of his mind when he was possessed by a Death Seed, and he unleashed his full power and nearly drove the entire world into an icy apocalypse. Yet despite all of that, Bobby routinely gets his butt handed to him in fights, rarely if ever actually contributing to the overall outcome. Even after mastering the depths of his power, he’s been routinely beaten down and even melted, though he’s recovered every time. Bobby has near limitless power, but that strength is locked behind a series of mental blocks and limiters, and he’s still stuck being the runt of the original X-Men in terms of fights as things stand.
9) Martian Manhunter
J’onn J’onzz’s power is severely underrated, as while many people overlook him, he rivals any of DC’s top tiers like Superman and Wonder Woman in terms of strength. Sheer muscle power wise, Martian Manhunter is on par with the Man of Steel, and has his own Martian Vision eye lasers that can go blast for blast with Superman’s. That’s not even taking into account his shapeshifting, density control, and unmatched telepathic and telekinetic abilities.
Yet even with all of that going for him, J’onn never seems to actually win big fights. Most of the time when he shows up, it’s to be a background character that everyone knows is strong, but can’t actually win the fight because other characters either need to win for the narrative, or the villain needs to seem stronger. Alongside that, he often has to contend with his own form of Kryptonite; fire. He’s lost to Lex Luthor, he’s lost to Zod, and heck, he’s lost to plenty of street-level people who light big enough fires.
8) Doctor Strange
Steven Strange is the Sorcerer Supreme, the ultimate magical authority on Earth and protector of this dimension from all manner of world-ending threats like Dormammu, Shuma-Gorath, and Mephisto. He regularly outwits or even outright beats them, and it often seems like there’s no limit to his power. Yet in recent years the good doctor has been killed and replaced more times than anyone cares to count. Stephen seemingly loses his position as the world’s premier wizard just about every other year now, it would seem. Despite how absurdly busted Doctor Strange is in other books, his own have him regularly getting wrecked and even being deposed.
7) The Flash
Speedsters are some of the most broken people to ever walk the Earth in DC, with feats like being able to effectively create infinite mass by punching so quickly, perception able to watch light travel from atom to atom, and Wally West being able to cross the entire length of the universe before an instant teleporter. If you can always see everything coming and react that quickly, you should probably never lose, but that hasn’t stopped the Flash from having some of the disproportionately weak villains ever.
I mean, the guy has had his life threatened by the Rogues of all people, whose ranks include regular people who have strong weaponry. It shouldn’t matter how good a gun is if you never let them pull the trigger or let what it fires hit you, but the Flash almost always does and always is. I mean, he’s been captured by the Trickster before, and he’s just a Joker knockoff! The Flash’s biggest villain is undoubtedly the nerfs from the writer so the story can have tension.
6) Silver Surfer
Wielder of the Power Cosmic and once Galactus’s greatest herald, the Surfer is able to go toe to toe with the strongest foes Marvel can throw at him, even taking on an entire army of world-destroyers like the Alephs. For context, just one of these robots could bring down the Avengers, if they weren’t careful. Despite all that, he does routinely need help or be bailed out of situations.
Not because he’s underpowered or nerfed in any way, but because he’s too trusting for his own good, with his foes taking advantage of his inherent desire to give someone the benefit of the doubt. The Silver Surfer is a pacifist at heart, so despite the absurd amount of damage he can unleash when he actually wants to, he would much rather resolve things peacefully, which has let plenty of enemies get the drop on him.
5) Jean Grey
Marvel’s poster child of death and rebirth, Jean Grey, is one with the Phoenix Force, which is the very manifestation of life itself. With it, Jean has done the impossible, such as draining the D’Bari system’s star for a light snack and defeating Enigma, a godlike intelligence only able to be beaten by something on par with Galactus. Of course, if you know anything about Jean, it’s that no matter how powerful she is, she will always find a way to die.
She is quite literally able to shake planets with her telekinesis, and yet she’s just as vulnerable to injury as a normal human. Even while fully enhanced by the Phoenix Force, Jean was killed by Xorn with an electromagnetic pulse and stabbed through the back by Moira. Jean is the textbook definition of a glass cannon, because no matter how ridiculously powerful she is, a single good blow can take her down even faster than the far weaker members of her team.
4) The Spectre
The Spectre is definitely one of the most powerful beings in the DC Universe, being an angel that embodies God’s wrath. His only weakness is that he requires a human host, as without one he loses control and mindlessly wreaks havoc to everything around him. For a very long time, going up against the Spectre seemed like the quickest way to see the Pearly Gates, but the last several years have massively devalued him with how often people appear who are either stronger or smack him aside.
It almost feels like the Spectre has become a benchmark to show that some new character or power-up is really tough, mentioning or showing how it lets them handle the Angel of Vengeance. I mean, during Absolute Power one of the Amazo just turned off Jim Corrigan’s ability to conjure the Spectre, for crying out loud! Which only came after he died at Darkseid’s hands at the start of Infinite Frontier, and after Pariah revived and possessed him during Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths. The once unstoppable spirit has had a seriously bad time recently.
3) Sentry
The Sentry is one of Marvel’s most dangerous threats. His powers allow him to manipulate reality around him, bending to his will, and he has raw strength equal to that of World-Breaker Hulk, whom he fought to a standstill. He gets even more dangerous once the Void, the embodiment of his negative emotions without mercy or restraint, takes over and routinely attempts to plunge the world into darkness. The one thing the Sentry is more known for than being mentally unstable is dying. A lot.
Bob has the ability to revive himself no matter how he dies, and when he doesn’t the Void will, but even still, with the power of one million exploding suns and considered such a threat that he had to wipe the entire world’s memories of him to stop himself from destroying it, you’d think he’d be a lot harder to kill. Sentry has been killed by Knull, which is nothing to be ashamed of, given how overpowered he is, but he’s also been done in by Thor, who seems like he should not be able to beat him. Sentry is ridiculous in strength and sheer lack of survivability.
2) Captain Atom
If the Worf Effect were ever renamed, it should be renamed to the Captain Atom Effect, because there is no man in the history of DC who has ever existed to prove how strong other people are more than him. He’s physically as strong as Superman, has all the power of an exploding nuclear bomb inside his suit, and has full control over atoms, which basically lets him perform alchemy on the fly (he once transformed Green Arrow’s arrows into butterflies).
This is barely even scratching the surface of what he can do. Captain Atom should literally be able to do anything he puts his mind to, but the only things he ever does are get beaten up, and if it’s an Elseworlds, he explodes. That’s literally every story he’s been in for the past twenty years, at least. I guarantee you that’s not changing any time soon. He is the textbook definition of a jobber, and I feel so sorry for any fans he has.
1) Ghost Rider
The award for most excessively overpowered yet most tragically destroyed by the plot can go to none other than Ghost Rider. The Spirit of Vengeance is quite literally immortal, can generate hellfire that can burn body and soul, and has one of the most busted abilities ever created in the Penance Stare, where whoever he looks at is forced to feel all of the pain they’ve ever caused other people all at once. This power should be able to send anyone packing, but should only get exponentially more effective the more evil a person is. And yet, despite the fact that Ghost Rider has the ultimate anti-villain power of all time, it almost never works anymore.
What was once a nigh-unstoppable battle-ender has become a literal joke, as it seems that just about anyone can ignore it if they choose to. The list of people that the Penance Stare has failed on includes, but is not limited to: Deadpool, Thanos, Venom, the Punisher, Conan the Barbarian, Galactus, Blackheart, Carnage, Deacon, and, most recently Doctor Doom. The reasons vary from having no regrets, enjoying the pain, being considered unjudgeable, being blind, and having too many eyes.
None of these should be reasons as to why it doesn’t work, just based on how the Stare is supposed to work, and because Ghost Rider is so often just boiled down to only this one ability, it not working to show how cool or evil a character is comes across as a massive slap in the face. One person beating it is terrifying, so many people you can make a list beating it is just stupid.
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Image courtesy of Lucasfilm
