How strong are parademons suppose to be anyway?

[mathew101281]

To me, they are the most inconsistently written threat in the DC universe. Sometimes they are shown to be strong enough to harm powerful characters like Superman and Wonderwoman. While other times street level characters are mowing them down like regular goons. I feel the STAS episode Apokolips Now really depicted the parademons the way they should be, A plague of superhuman locusts essentually.

[titanfan]

To me, they are the most inconsistently written threat in the DC universe. Sometimes they are shown to be strong enough to harm powerful characters like Superman and Wonderwoman. While other times street level characters are mowing them down like regular goons. I feel the STAS episode Apokolips Now really depicted the parademons the way they should be, A plague of superhuman locusts essentually.

Their just general Apokolips residents and former captured enemies that have been reconditioned, so just like the human population, presumably some of them would be more competent than others and some (in theory) could also be the equivalent of metas...

I picture them as generally above street level earth heroes power wise, but without skill, generally they should be gnats to like Superman and Wonder Woman.

[LordAllMIghty]

Their just general Apokolips residents and former captured enemies that have been reconditioned, so just like the human population, presumably some of them would be more competent than others and some (in theory) could also be the equivalent of metas...

I picture them as generally above street level earth heroes power wise, but without skill, generally they should be gnats to like Superman and Wonder Woman.

Learn something new everyday.

[Restingvoice]

To me, they are the most inconsistently written threat in the DC universe. Sometimes they are shown to be strong enough to harm powerful characters like Superman and Wonderwoman. While other times street level characters are mowing them down like regular goons. I feel the STAS episode Apokolips Now really depicted the parademons the way they should be, A plague of superhuman locusts essentially.

Judging from what I've seen in comics, they're like a much dumber, single-minded, Killer Croc.

They have armor, so they're hard to hit by your average street level, but they don't think. So Bruce and Dick can easily them one on one, or jump over and kick one off-balance so it hits the others and sends 2-3 of them back to the Boom Tube, while each one of the superpowered League members handles hordes of them easy.

That's their defense level though. Their damage output is big since they can self-destruct.

That being said since Bruce and Dick fights them while Hal and Baz are nearby, they're safe.

[DrNewGod]

To me, they are the most inconsistently written threat in the DC universe. Sometimes they are shown to be strong enough to harm powerful characters like Superman and Wonderwoman. While other times street level characters are mowing them down like regular goons. I feel the STAS episode Apokolips Now really depicted the parademons the way they should be, A plague of superhuman locusts essentually.

Like you, I feel like Parademons' depiction are all over the map.

[K. Jones]

Strong enough to scare a squad of human cops.

Weak enough that Orion can beat the hell out of a squad of them.

That's exactly how strong. They're functionaries of the "Enemy has to have Legions" trope. In real life if a guy has legions you're in some serious trouble because each member of that Legion equals one of you, a person, with varying levels of skill but every single one has the potential, nay, the statistical probability of your defeat. But in fiction, legions are props. They make the bad guy look like powerful, possibly charismatic, possibly privileged with some earned respect or some un-earned family lineage, and probably corrupt, and they make the good guy look astronomically powerful because he can beat up like 20 guys at once. Or make him look crafty and clever because he can figure out how to slip past them or sneak around them or escape their hunt.

A fictional enemy horde trooper's "power levels" are meaningless.

[Lightning Rider]

I feel the STAS episode Apokolips Now really depicted the parademons the way they should be, A plague of superhuman locusts essentually.

Though even then, Turpin is able to beat one down.

[Ascended]

We've seen parademons come from a number of sources; they're recycled and repurposed beings who have been captured and conquered, or the native Lowly inhabitants of Apokolips, or Bugs from New Genesis, etc.

So you're going to end up with a fairly diverse spread. The parademons who can be tripped and pushed and out-muscled by the likes of Nightwing, Batman, or Dan Turpin likely come from earth or some other planet where the native humanoids have a similar strength scale. Stronger parademons who can crush a car and not shift their feet when you push them were likely harvested from planets like Thanagar or Tamaran, where the natives are stronger than earthlings. The parademons who can actually scratch Superman are probably culled from the Fire Pits of Apokolips, where even the lowest of natives are born to that higher dimension.

The parademons' power levels aren't consistent at all, but they probably shouldn't be. They're not a singular race of creatures, but victims from across all multi-reality who were twisted and turned and mutilated and changed by the Evil Factory. Even in the spawning pits where parademons breed more parademons, you're going to get a lot of variability in those "natural born" parademons because their parents and ancestors were once regular humans or Almeraci or Khund or Bugs or whatever.

[DrNewGod]

We've seen parademons come from a number of sources; they're recycled and repurposed beings who have been captured and conquered, or the native Lowly inhabitants of Apokolips, or Bugs from New Genesis, etc.

So you're going to end up with a fairly diverse spread. The parademons who can be tripped and pushed and out-muscled by the likes of Nightwing, Batman, or Dan Turpin likely come from earth or some other planet where the native humanoids have a similar strength scale. Stronger parademons who can crush a car and not shift their feet when you push them were likely harvested from planets like Thanagar or Tamaran, where the natives are stronger than earthlings. The parademons who can actually scratch Superman are probably culled from the Fire Pits of Apokolips, where even the lowest of natives are born to that higher dimension.

The parademons' power levels aren't consistent at all, but they probably shouldn't be. They're not a singular race of creatures, but victims from across all multi-reality who were twisted and turned and mutilated and changed by the Evil Factory. Even in the spawning pits where parademons breed more parademons, you're going to get a lot of variability in those "natural born" parademons because their parents and ancestors were once regular humans or Almeraci or Khund or Bugs or whatever.

That makes more sense than anything else that I've heard or read.