Do you like your favorite characters invincible?

[Minerboh]

Of course not. What's the point reading the adventures of an invincible Spider-Man? The struggle is Spidey's most characteristic element.
But... I do find it weird, not to mention frustating seeing Spider-Man, a character that can lift the Daily Bugle skyscraper and train wagons having difficulties hadling people like the Kingpin who doesn't have any kind of super power at all

[Jabare]

No, unless its a superman archetype character and even than its got to be hard with crazy odds and a lot of action

[The tall man]

I say no but some seem to prefer their favorites be all-powerful or invincible. Look at some x-fans, they want their favorites to all be omega level mutants because they think being all-powerful equals being better. I think all earth based heroes should have a hard cap on their power levels, no reality warping or planet wide effect scale, leave that to cosmic level beings. No earth based hero should be able to defeat Galactus or Celestials. But sadly these days it's all about being as powerful as one can be and writers/creators are not helping in that regard. Actually it's mostly the two extremes, one is either a world beater or a jobber of the highest order.

[gurkle]

One thing it kind of depends on is whether you want your favorite character to be able to go one-on-one with other nearly-invincible characters.

So my favorite character is the Scarlet Witch, and I'm always pushing back against people who say (based on House of M) that she's the most powerful being in the multiverse or whatever. Why? Because she is primarily a team character, not a star, and if she got too powerful she would be useless on a team. (And I suspect one reason she doesn't get used on teams as much as she used to is that writers/editors really do think she is too powerful to use.) Plus I also think part of what I like about her is that she cleverly uses her powers to punch above her weight class, taking on seemingly much more powerful characters like the Enchantress.

On the other hand if my favorite character was Thor or the Hulk or someone else who is guaranteed a solo book, then I might feel the opposite way and want them not to look bad by losing to anyone less than all-powerful.

[XPac]

One thing it kind of depends on is whether you want your favorite character to be able to go one-on-one with other nearly-invincible characters.

So my favorite character is the Scarlet Witch, and I'm always pushing back against people who say (based on House of M) that she's the most powerful being in the multiverse or whatever. Why? Because she is primarily a team character, not a star, and if she got too powerful she would be useless on a team. (And I suspect one reason she doesn't get used on teams as much as she used to is that writers/editors really do think she is too powerful to use.) Plus I also think part of what I like about her is that she cleverly uses her powers to punch above her weight class, taking on seemingly much more powerful characters like the Enchantress.

On the other hand if my favorite character was Thor or the Hulk or someone else who is guaranteed a solo book, then I might feel the opposite way and want them not to look bad by losing to anyone less than all-powerful.

The hero almost never has to worry about looking bad losing, because 99% of the time the hero ends up winning at the end of the story anyways. And they'll win in the end every OTHER time they end up facing the bad guy.

To me, it's not the heroes that need to worry about looking bad losing because the heroes always win in the end. I think it's the villains who need to worry about looking bad losing. Eventually you lose enough times, and the bad guy stops being all that threatening. That's hard to do after losing a few dozen times to the same guy over and over again. Guys like Thanos, Magneto and Doom are the exception, because they DO win once in awhile.

That's why I think villains should almost always win a few rounds here and there, even if they lose in the end.

[JudicatorPrime]

I usually prefer the archenemy to be better than the hero in some way, whether that's intellect, power, or some other substantive advantage. I never want a world where it's possible to eradicate villainy completely. We need the thorn to make things interesting. Whenever I complain that the hero isn't powerful enough, I'm also usually calling for said hero's rogues gallery to be equal or better to the hero. For example, I wouldn't want to make the Falcon into a version of the god Horus without also making his main archenemy the Elder God Set (not Seth, Set). And what the heck, toss in a Cosmic Cube wielding Red Skull while you're at it. Pitting an "Invincible" Falcon against an even more badass rogue is the kind of story that I'd want to tell and read.