How Strong Is Captain America?

[jackolover]

I’m referring to Steve Rogers with the Super Soldier serum, here.

I think I’ve read somewhere in the Golden Age that Cap has the strength of 3 men. But maybe a more recent update has him as strong as 10 Men? I have also seen statements that Cap is peak performance human, but that is no rating. I am interested in a how many men he is as strong as.

[JKtheMac]

I’m referring to Steve Rogers with the Super Soldier serum, here.

I think I’ve read somewhere in the Golden Age that Cap has the strength of 3 men. But maybe a more recent update has him as strong as 10 Men? I have also seen statements that Cap is peak performance human, but that is no rating. I am interested in a how many men he is as strong as.

You want an exact number? Why exactly? What about 4.68 men?

[Triniking1234]

An athletic male can lift between 125 to 170 lbs. Marvel says Steve is above peak athleticism and can lift approx. 800 lbs. so yeah close to JK's number.

[vitruvian]

I’m referring to Steve Rogers with the Super Soldier serum, here.

I think I’ve read somewhere in the Golden Age that Cap has the strength of 3 men. But maybe a more recent update has him as strong as 10 Men? I have also seen statements that Cap is peak performance human, but that is no rating. I am interested in a how many men he is as strong as.

Which men are we using as a unit? Couch potatoes, Marines, Olympic weightlifters?

[theoneandonly]

he is strong enough to lift 40 Nazis and that's terrible... for them that is a more serious answer is that we shall never know as he won't be participating in men lifting competitions anytime soon.

[XPac]

I think the handbook back in the day stated he could bench press 800-900 pounds or something in that ball park.

But the thing is, marvel writers and artists often don't bother doing the match when they have them performing various feats of strength in comics. I don't doubt if we do some digging he's probably done things which imply greater strength than that.

[vitruvian]

I think the handbook back in the day stated he could bench press 800-900 pounds or something in that ball park.

But the thing is, marvel writers and artists often don't bother doing the match when they have them performing various feats of strength in comics. I don't doubt if we do some digging he's probably done things which imply greater strength than that.

Definitely. Functionally, he's in some nebulous area between what you could just about believe an Olympic power lifter or circus strongman managing to do (even though Cap doesn't have nearly their muscle mass), and out and out superstrong feats like lifting and throwing cars... and that's for lifting things, where some readers might have a decent idea of the weight of objects like, say, a motorcycle of a certain make and model. For how strong he is in terms of hitting and breaking things, especially when using his shield as a weapon, most people really can't base a sanity check on their own experience, so it's solely determined by plot.

And since MCU Cap is stronger still (kicking jeeps into people, keeping helicopters from taking off), comics Cap is subject to significant creep even on these limits as more writers and artists take their cue from his most popular depiction.

[DrNewGod]

There was a brief period in the 1970s where he had an unspecified, but superhuman level of strength thanks to comicbook bio-chemistry (supersolider serum+Viper poison). Other than that, what others here have said about the answer being nebulous is the most correct answer.

If you want an exact number, look up the bench, squat, military press, and curl world records. As CA is supposed to be as strong as it humanly possible, he can at least do that.

[JKtheMac]

I think the handbook back in the day stated he could bench press 800-900 pounds or something in that ball park.

But the thing is, marvel writers and artists often don't bother doing the match when they have them performing various feats of strength in comics. I don't doubt if we do some digging he's probably done things which imply greater strength than that.

Thank goodness they don’t do the maths. Storytelling isn’t some kind of mathematical puzzle. How strong is his willpower? Exactly how charismatic are his speeches? Where exactly is his political stance on the Nolan Scale? These are questions better explored by stories, and the same can be said for any measure.

Even numerical questions contain intangibles. How fast has Bolt ever run in training and why is competition more likely to bring out a faster speed? How much more could we bench press when we are prepared to put our bodies on the line for family and friends? Is that more or less than when you are angry about the political stance of a president just after you resign?

[vitruvian]

Thank goodness they don’t do the maths. Storytelling isn’t some kind of mathematical puzzle. How strong is his willpower? Exactly how charismatic are his speeches? Where exactly is his political stance on the Nolan Scale? These are questions better explored by stories, and the same can be said for any measure.

I'm not sure how relevant those examples are to this discussion, since strength is quite different in terms of whether it is, in fact, easily quantifiable. No, nobody needs an exact figure for number of pounds a character can lift, but keeping things within the same rough order of magnitude is reasonable as a matter of consistency. If one day (or issue) Cap is struggling a little with a motorcycle, and another he's throwing Buicks across a football field, it seems reasonable to expect that that would be because his strength was actually increased in terms of events in the story, not that it's just a matter of interpretation between different writers.

Even numerical questions contain intangibles. How fast has Bolt ever run in training and why is competition more likely to bring out a faster speed? How much more could we bench press when we are prepared to put our bodies on the line for family and friends? Is that more or less than when you are angry about the political stance of a president just after you resign?

Sure, performance is going to vary... but within a fairly limited range. Usain Bolt's momentary top speed is simply not going to jump from just short of 28 mph one day to 40 mph the next - or probably ever.

Keeping things pretty vague and nebulous is fine - like I said, it's fine to leave Cap (in the comics, he's already exceeded this a bit in the movies) somewhere indeterminate between Olympic weightlifting and being able to bench press or toss even a compact car. It's a guideline, not some hard and fast number... but by that same token, you don't want to suddenly have him tossing cars across a city block, at least not without an explicit boost within the context of the story, lest you lose your readers' willing suspension of disbelief.

[XPac]

Thank goodness they don’t do the maths. Storytelling isn’t some kind of mathematical puzzle. How strong is his willpower? Exactly how charismatic are his speeches? Where exactly is his political stance on the Nolan Scale? These are questions better explored by stories, and the same can be said for any measure.

Even numerical questions contain intangibles. How fast has Bolt ever run in training and why is competition more likely to bring out a faster speed? How much more could we bench press when we are prepared to put our bodies on the line for family and friends? Is that more or less than when you are angry about the political stance of a president just after you resign?

I'm find with those sort of questions being explored by stories provided there is a relative level of consistency. I think that's the key.

Though sometimes it's just hard to tell. I'm honestly still not really sure how strong Jessica Jones is for example. Not that it's super important to know... but I'm still kinda curious about it.

[davew128]

I think the handbook back in the day stated he could bench press 800-900 pounds or something in that ball park.

But the thing is, marvel writers and artists often don't bother doing the match when they have them performing various feats of strength in comics. I don't doubt if we do some digging he's probably done things which imply greater strength than that.

Truth. Hell Daredevil has feats of strength that no non-superpowered human could lift. But speaking strictly to Cap, he is super powered because his body does things a normal can't, such as not produce lactic acid. He's been shown running 5 miles in not much more than 5 minutes. Basically he sprinted at three times the speed of Usain Bolt for the entire distance without tiring. If thats not superpowered I don't know what is.

[JKtheMac]

I'm not sure how relevant those examples are to this discussion, since strength is quite different in terms of whether it is, in fact, easily quantifiable.

From a storytelling perspective I don't think they are different at all. Its all a matter of context and character.

Sure, performance is going to vary... but within a fairly limited range. Usain Bolt's momentary top speed is simply not going to jump from just short of 28 mph one day to 40 mph the next - or probably ever.

But what if somebody injected him with adrenalin and then unleashed an especially trained, giant, man-eating cheetah? What are humans actually capable of? It is nebulous. Yes there is a limit, but it isn't quantifiable because we can always ask "OK, but what if..." Nothing in nature can be measured precisely, and nothing in serialised fiction can be the last word on anything.

Keeping things pretty vague and nebulous is fine - like I said, it's fine to leave Cap (in the comics, he's already exceeded this a bit in the movies) somewhere indeterminate between Olympic weightlifting and being able to bench press or toss even a compact car. It's a guideline, not some hard and fast number... but by that same token, you don't want to suddenly have him tossing cars across a city block, at least not without an explicit boost within the context of the story, lest you lose your readers' willing suspension of disbelief.

But there will be occasions where the context makes the result exceptional. The trick of verisimilitude is not to make the story impervious to comparison with other stories. Sure we love to argue about these things on the internet, but the writer's job has absolutely nothing to do with these concerns. Their job is to tell the story they are working on in a way that feels natural enough to not break verisimilitude.

The trick is to keep things believable in the moment and not have the average reader question it. Stories are not real. Nothing about a story is 'realistic' even stories that strive for realism are crafted to do that through artificial means. Even documentaries compromise in that regard. Every story ever written can be pulled apart to expose where it is not realistic, but the exercise misses the point of stories.

[DrNewGod]

Honestly, as much as I love the OHBOTMU, I prefer ranges over hard numbers. Seems like there was a backup feature in an annual one time trying to explain how strong Spider-Man (I think) was. They presented the characters in groups: Thor, Herc and Hulk were part of one crowd, and Cap, Panther, and DD in another, with a great many groups along the way in between (Spidey did not like how low a group he fell into).

[DigiCom]

I’m referring to Steve Rogers with the Super Soldier serum, here.

I think I’ve read somewhere in the Golden Age that Cap has the strength of 3 men. But maybe a more recent update has him as strong as 10 Men? I have also seen statements that Cap is peak performance human, but that is no rating. I am interested in a how many men he is as strong as.

On a scale of 1 to Z, he's "peppermint".