Strongest avenger

[JudicatorPrime]

That said because Thor is considered the established big gun on the Avengers, writers will almost lazily job Thor out in order to establish how powerful someone else is.

All the more reason to have more than one "big gun." The concept of a team anchored by just one stalwart is passé as far as Avengers teams go. The bad guys aren't just your run of the mill felony perps. Even villains who want to take over the world are really just guppies with small pond thinking. No, these days we have villains with the power to totally dominate whole star systems. Having just one big gun is not a good enough deterrent. Especially, when we know that he/she is going to get their head handed to them in the early going. Don't just send Thor. Send Thor, Monica and Blue Marvel. Or Hyperion, Doctor Strange and Binary. Or Starbrand, Hulk and the Sentry. But leave the little guys at home and keep the PIS to a minimum.

[XPac]

All the more reason to have more than one "big gun." The concept of a team anchored by just one stalwart is passé as far as Avengers teams go. The bad guys aren't just your run of the mill felony perps. Even villains who want to take over the world are really just guppies with small pond thinking. No, these days we have villains with the power to totally dominate whole star systems. Having just one big gun is not a good enough deterrent. Especially, when we know that he/she is going to get their head handed to them in the early going. Don't just send Thor. Send Thor, Monica and Blue Marvel. Or Hyperion, Doctor Strange and Binary. Or Starbrand, Hulk and the Sentry. But leave the little guys at home and keep the PIS to a minimum.

Yeah, you can say screw the little guys and just use the powerful characters... that frankly makes more sense even against lesser threats. A Spectrum is not only more useful against a high end threat... she's frankly more useful against lower end threats too. But ultimately writers will use the characters they want to use. And of course using more popular characters factors into things as well to SOME degree... if a lot of people love stories with Spider-Man or Wolverine, then for big stories we will see Spider-Man and Wolverine.

Moral of the story being there are a lot of elements which go into which heroes are used in a story outside of power level. Heroes obviously need to be powerful enough to get the job done somehow someway... but it's more than just that. Otherwise books wouldn't even need to bother with the weaker characters.

[Ptrvc]

Am I missing something?

Last I checked it's the more powerful characters that get **** on the most in team books. If you're a fan of a powerhouse the last place you want to see them is on a team with Spider-Man, Captain America, and Wolverine.

Stay as far away from Avenger's membership as possible that's my advice for anyone more powerful than Peter Parker.

[JudicatorPrime]

Moral of the story being there are a lot of elements which go into which heroes are used in a story outside of power level. Heroes obviously need to be powerful enough to get the job done somehow someway... but it's more than just that. Otherwise books wouldn't even need to bother with the weaker characters.

Yes, of course. But if they know that they're going to job the big guns just to give the little guys purpose that they otherwise wouldn't have, they're better off either leaving the big guns off of the team, or starting a new team that has weight/class requirements. If they did that just once, I'd be happy. But unfortunately, the practice is to have Batman routinely deck Superman.

[XPac]

Yes, of course. But if they know that they're going to job the big guns just to give the little guys purpose that they otherwise wouldn't have, they're better off either leaving the big guns off of the time, or starting a new team that has weight/class requirements. If they did that just once, I'd be happy. But unfortunately, the practice is to have Batman routinely deck Superman.

We've had a few cosmic teams which basically had high weight class requirements. The Cosmic Avengers and the Annihilators for example. And books like that can be fun. Ultimates SORT OF falls into that category too. T'Challa obviously isn't the most powerful character on paper, but he more than makes up for it in other ways.

But the problem is that cosmic stuff (the most logical place for purely heavy hitter teams) is they are often such niche books that they rarely go far. Hopefully they give Ultimates another shot, because I do think that has potential to last. It was a heavy hitter team with a couple movie characters, and was basically an Avengers team even if it wasn't officially labelled as such.

[JudicatorPrime]

Ultimates SORT OF falls into that category too. T'Challa obviously isn't the most powerful character on paper, but he more than makes up for it in other ways.

Ewing did for T'Challa exactly the thing that I'm speaking against. He molded the narrative so that a character who wouldn't otherwise play a role, did. Ewing had T'Challa appeal to the Tiger God for power, remember? I'm still not sure why Bast wasn't ticked off about that. Gods don't like to share supplicants. As much as I like T'Challa, he didn't need to be in the Ultimates. I feel the same way about Carol. But we both know that they were there to ensure sales. Given that the book was cancelled anyway, Ewing should have left both off of the team and used the panel time for the other characters. T'Challa's genius strategist role could have been replaced by Monica and Adam. Carol's role was just outright redundant. MAC, Adam, Monica... any of them could have filled her spot, thus avoiding the CW2 crap. Add in two other characters, like Jane Thor and make Anti-Man a member as Galan's true herald. That squad hits! The plus here is that readers would then become more interested and more invested in those characters, so that you wouldn't need to bring in other established characters for sales the next time. And if at the end you needed a preternatural power to take down Logos, I can think of a hundred ways to do that convincingly ... and without even involving the Tiger God. But oh well. What is, is.

[Spiderboi]

the strongest avenger in my opinion, is probably none other than Captain Marvel

[pageturner]

I thought I read somewhere that Hulk and Sentry fought until both were basically depowered and had to rest up...or something like that? Or maybe I'm thinking of someone else?

I think that is a what if story about WW Hulk.

[kilderkin]

I think that is a what if story about WW Hulk.

It is wwh main story

[davew128]

the strongest avenger in my opinion, is probably none other than Captain Marvel

Until Quasar shows up and simply shuts her down, Binary or not.

[XPac]

Until Quasar shows up and simply shuts her down, Binary or not.

I'm darn sure a Gruenwald written Quasar would be very high on the list.

I guess the current one who busted the shield in Secret Empire would be in the conversation if she were actually an Avenger. But I'm not sure she ever actually joined.

[davew128]

I'm darn sure a Gruenwald written Quasar would be very high on the list.

I guess the current one who busted the shield in Secret Empire would be in the conversation if she were actually an Avenger. But I'm not sure she ever actually joined.

One could reasonably argue about where Wendell is in the most powerful pecking order. But as to him versus Captain Marvel, he literally took her apart during Operation Galactic Storm when she was Binary. The Quantum Bands are Carol's worst nightmare when it comes to energy absorption and redirection.

[JudicatorPrime]

I'm darn sure a Gruenwald written Quasar would be very high on the list.

I guess the current one who busted the shield in Secret Empire would be in the conversation if she were actually an Avenger. But I'm not sure she ever actually joined.

It's funny how no one really complained about how OP Wendell was. He's definitely up there.

[XPac]

It's funny how no one really complained about how OP Wendell was. He's definitely up there.

Wendell falls into the category of a very powerful character who has very human levels of strength and durabilty. So similar to say a Dr. Strange or a Storm, even though they are uber powerful they can also be theoretically taken out by a bullet or a lucky punch if you can get close enough to do it. Of course Wendell has force fields and such... but at the end of the day he's still a regular human being wearing those bands. He's not like say a Silver Surfer or a Blue Marvel, who are invulernable and have class 100 strength on top of everything else.

[gurkle]

The thing about these cosmically-powered types is that they can actually be underpowered for the sort of mundane earth-bound missions that the Avengers face a lot of the time. Writers like to show how a character has the power of a star or whatever when they let loose, but you can't actually let loose when you're in the middle of New York and you're trying not to kill anybody. Like it doesn't help to have a nuclear weapon if your objective is to win without blowing up yourself and everybody on your side.

While I would roll my eyes sometimes at Roger Stern telling us how powerful Monica Rambeau was, he did come up with a character who was OP but in a way that made her suitable for regular fights.