What Are the Strongest Feats of Strength Depicted in the Marvel Universe?

[Ptrvc]

Power scaling doesn't have to be mathmetically perfect... but the point being when you have feats where someone is doing something in the trillion ton plus range, the whole system just can't work (except for guys like Hulk, whose strength can magically go up and down as needed). That's too high a ceiling.

Or are Spidey and Cap to low a floor?

I like my crazy, epic, mythologically strong characters. I'm guessing you're more of a street level fan.

Either we accept some level of gray area, force one side or the other to fit closer in with the scale of the other, (Spidey has to hit the gym.).

Or accept that Street Levelers shouldn't be involved in fights where individual punches level streets.

[H-E-D]

Well, in Siege, Sentry tore Ares in two with his bare hands and then was able to destroy Asgard in a few moments.

But, I suppose, theoretically, Sentry could do almost anything, "no limit to his power set" and all that jazz, so maybe it isn't quite as impressive.

[davew128]

I wouldn't say Spidey could hurt Luke Cage with a hit. Not currently. At least not outside of him doing it because he's popular, the writer wills it.

Cage is about as tough as Grimm though not as strong. There's a pretty huge gap between Spidey and Luke Cage. (Cage is a pretty bad example because of his durability. He'd have a hard time seriously injuring himself.)

Well a lot of that is Spidey's strength has been scaled down and Cage's durability scaled up in the last decade or so. I'd say around the beginning of the century Spidey could probably knock Cage out as he was actually the stronger of the two.

[Ptrvc]

Well a lot of that is Spidey's strength has been scaled down and Cage's durability scaled up in the last decade or so. I'd say around the beginning of the century Spidey could probably knock Cage out as he was actually the stronger of the two.

I agree. Cage is much more powerful now, as is his buddy Iron Fist.

[XPac]

Or are Spidey and Cap to low a floor?

I like my crazy, epic, mythologically strong characters. I'm guessing you're more of a street level fan.

Either we accept some level of gray area, force one side or the other to fit closer in with the scale of the other, (Spidey has to hit the gym.).

Or accept that Street Levelers shouldn't be involved in fights where individual punches level streets.

I like both street level and cosmic stuff.

My point isn't what I prefer... I'm simply saying that some writers prefer things to have a degree of realism and scale and some don't. The end result being inconsistency, or a lack thereof. If you have a character capable of benching something a couple hundred trillion tons, it's pretty much a given that there will be occasions where they will be potrayed nowhere near that strong. In fact it's probably fair to say in an actual fight they will pretty much NEVER be potrayed as that strong in a functional sense. The higher the ceiling, the more inconsistency you'll get.

But there's no right or wrong there... merely an issue of preference with the writers.

[JudicatorPrime]

Well a lot of that is Spidey's strength has been scaled down and Cage's durability scaled up in the last decade or so. I'd say around the beginning of the century Spidey could probably knock Cage out as he was actually the stronger of the two.

Even without scaling, Spider-Man should break his fist when he goes to punch Cage, Cap's shield, Iron Man, Colossus, Juggernaut, the Rhino, most of the Heralds of Galactus, etc., and anyone with extremely dense tissue or bone structure. He is still at the end of the day flesh and bone. The elasticity is somewhat augmented, but even a normal night out on the town punching and getting punched by normal humans should leave Peter bruised and sore. (I think we've seen that.) That's one of the reasons why everyone loved the symbiote, because most of the "real science" of constant combat could be excused away by the attributes of the suit. Plus, writers tend to confuse strength with invulnerability. It doesn't translate exactly to 1:1, especially with Peter. It's quite expressed in how disproportionate his strength to invulnerability ratio is, unlike with the aforementioned Cage.

All that said, I can't knock it when writers take liberties with what I call the "super fist syndrome." Not after we've seen Cap, Daredevil, Black Widow and others punch scores of villains without so much as a nick.

[JudicatorPrime]

Hyperion moving a planet is up there though. He didn't just keep 2 planets apart, he pushed one (something which in theory shouldn't be possible given the relative mass involved). So he's up there as far as feats go. Given he's an obvious Superman clone, I suppose that's not surprising.

No doubt! I was just considering the feat relative to the field. But it's definitely a tremendous feat, not only to move the mass of the Earth and counter the inertia of the planet, but to do so in a way that doesn't alter the planet's rotation (which would be catastrophic) and also to negate the gravitational fields of the sun and the moon...and to a lesser extent, other neighboring planets.

Yes, that is very much Superman-like...which, if we're being honest, should be something that all of Marvel's Superman analogues should be able to do, if they're truly Superman analogues. (The question of which version of Superman, i.e., Golden Age, Silver Age, Superman Prime, Superman of Earth 2, etc., never really gets addressed.)

But the difference between the old and new characters is that because the older characters have more showings, they have more low end feats in addition to more high end feats. So their average between the highs and lows might actually be lower than a newer character.

True, which is why I often suggest that people give the newer characters a chance and not focus so much on their early showings. We all know writers will come along and nerf/job/anti-PIS them eventually. Happens to everyone.

[JudicatorPrime]

I miss the whimsy of seeing Manhattan towed by chains.

Same here. Not only does it draw you in, but it also reminds you not to take some of these feats so seriously. Some readers feel that "feat for feat's sake" is bad writing, but if you're not here to see a godlike being heft an island, or a single champion fell hundreds of faceless lackeys singlehandedly, you're definitely in the wrong hobby.