# Forum > Discussion > Media Discussions >  Outlier Super-Feats

## TeChameleon

Was idly thinking and decided to post a thread about it- what are some of the extreme outlier feats of characters in superhero comics?  Like, things that they've done that are _wildly_ outside their normal power ranges with no in-plot powerups or anything like that.

Examples would be:

* Black Panther successfully putting the Silver Surfer in a submission hold (Silver Surfer doesn't actually need to move to, oh, I don't know, disintegrate Black Panther, or just go intangible and leave, or whatever, and is also strong enough to get into slapfights with the Hulk)

* Spider-Man beating the stupid out of Firelord (herald of Galactus, has the power cosmic)

* Banshee countering Moses Magnum's Earthquake machine/powers that he was planning to use to _sink Japan_ (sure, Banshee burned out his powers temporarily doing this, but directly countering, then overpowering, the machine to the point that it blew up Magnum's entire volcano base means that Banshee has enough power to sink Japan.  That's... I'm not even sure how to quantify that.  Dozens, if not hundreds, maybe even thousands, of nukes worth of power.  Based on that showing, the guy should be able to casually liquefy the Juggernaut when they fight, not struggle to bring down Sabertooth!)

* Black Canary randomly gaining Flash-level reaction times while sparring with Wonder Woman (nanosecond reactions?  Really?  With 'no superpowers'?)

* Superman flying *through* a red sun, then crash-landing in a kryptonite meteor field with continent-sized chunks of the stuff floating all around him, with no greater ill effects than acting like he's sort of out of breath (normally a few grams of kryptonite is enough to send him to his knees in both agony and being so weak he can no longer support his own body weight, and the general equivalent of a few fluorescent lights on same light frequency as a red sun is enough to depower him almost completely)

So what are some other weird 'wait, they can't do that..?' moments from comics?

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## animorte

Does it have to be from super hero comics? This is a neat thread idea and there is so much potential.

First, I fully expect a fair amount of ridiculous Superman shenanigans. He gained new feats depending on what the new writers ate for breakfast that particular morning and whether or not someone swapped out their decaf with Red Bull.

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## Rynjin

In one of the very, very early Iron Fist comics the Iron Fist was said to explode with the force of a nuclear bomb, and he actually leveled a town/small city with it.

This level of power was basically dropped, and I don't think Iron Fist has equivalently spectacular feats* even with the power-ups he's gotten over the years.

*Except maybe karate chopping the leg off a kaiju sized monster?

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## TeChameleon

> Does it have to be from super hero comics? This is a neat thread idea and there is so much potential.


Nah, no real reason it has to be superhero comics.  That's just what I'm familiar with for this sort of thing, and the long history and musical chairs of writers/artists make it fertile ground for oddball outliers.




> In one of the very, very early Iron Fist comics the Iron Fist was said to explode with the force of a nuclear bomb, and he actually leveled a town/small city with it.
> 
> This level of power was basically dropped, and I don't think Iron Fist has equivalently spectacular feats* even with the power-ups he's gotten over the years.
> 
> *Except maybe karate chopping the leg off a kaiju sized monster?


I seem to recall him punching a helicarrier out of the sky once also (while standing and punching on the flight deck, which is far and away the most heavily reinforced part of any aircraft carrier), although I'm not sure where that would stand in terms of 'like a nuke'.  Also, when chopping off the kaiju leg, didn't he briefly have superspeed or something of that nature?

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## Rater202

> In one of the very, very early Iron Fist comics the Iron Fist was said to explode with the force of a nuclear bomb, and he actually leveled a town/small city with it.
> 
> This level of power was basically dropped, and I don't think Iron Fist has equivalently spectacular feats* even with the power-ups he's gotten over the years.
> 
> *Except maybe karate chopping the leg off a kaiju sized monster?


Fat Cobra, another Immortal Weapon, was thrown into Avengers Mountain(The literal corpse of a Dead Celestial, repurposed as a base of operations by the Avengers with he blessings of the Celestial Host,) with enough force that it was described as resembling the energy output of a neutron star.

He was completly unharmed.

Other than that, my favorite has to be the time that Magneto rescued Shadow Cat by dragging the metallic bullet she was trapped in back to Earth at FTL speeds from lightyears away.

And if feats if bravery or fool hardiness count, J. Jonah, Jameson once leaned out his window and yelled at Godzilla.

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## The Glyphstone

That last one is, to be fair, 100% within the normal behavior patterns for J Jonah Jameson. So not really an outlier.

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## Chronos

How about that time that Squirrel Girl...  Well, pretty much anything.

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## GloatingSwine

> How about that time that Squirrel Girl...  Well, pretty much anything.


It's not an outlier at that point, is it?

In fact, the only outlier is that one time Doctor Doom put together a team sort of capable of taking her on.

Except not actually because her friends helped and she's friends with Galactus.

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## BloodSquirrel

> It's not an outlier at that point, is it?
> 
> In fact, the only outlier is that one time Doctor Doom put together a team sort of capable of taking her on.
> 
> Except not actually because her friends helped and she's friends with Galactus.


It's an outlier because, outside of Squirrel Girl stories, the villains she defeats aren't portrayed as being vulnerable to things like squirrels. They way she herself is portrayed isn't an outlier as such, but for the villains their showings are outliers on the other end of the spectrum- instances where they're portrayed as being much weaker than they usually are.

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## Rockphed

> That last one is, to be fair, 100% within the normal behavior patterns for J Jonah Jameson. So not really an outlier.


My favorite part of _Spiderman: Far From Home_ was having J Jonah Jameson being an angry news blogger.  It was very on brand for his personality.

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## Rynjin

> My favorite part of _Spiderman: Far From Home_ was having J Jonah Jameson being an angry news blogger.  It was very on brand for his personality.


Him being an almost Alex Jones-esque podcaster in the 2018 Spider-man game was pretty great too.

(Bonus points for all of his outlandish conspiracy theories being proven 100% correct by the end of the game EXCEPT as they pertained to Spider-man himself.)

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## The Glyphstone

That was indeed a perfect modern reinterpretation of the character for a post-newspaper media world.

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## animorte

> That was indeed a perfect modern reinterpretation of the character for a post-newspaper media world.


Agreed. Sometimes he reminds me of a mister Cave Johnson (Portal). _Probably_ in small part because, at some point, theyre played by the exact same person.

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## Shoreward

Do _negative_ feats count? Because if so, I have two... favourites? Is that the right word?

The first is the time Worf, a powerful Klingon and valued Starfleet member, had his back broken by a flimsy-looking prop barrel when it fell off a high shelf. One could argue that Worf being defeated in some embarrassing way is not an outlier, but this is either an _incredible_ moment of shame for our poor Klingon... or an incredible feat of _strength_ on the part of the barrel.

The other is the time the Flash  incarnations of which have been shown sensing a bullet as it hit the back of his neck while unaware and having time to dodge, or rescuing the entire population of a village in the _seconds_ before a nuclear bomb hit it  ran headlong into Deathstrokes sword because the man held it backwards under his arm for a second.

In both cases, the events get treated with a grim gravitas which only serves to make them even _funnier_.

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## BloodSquirrel

> Do _negative_ feats count? Because if so, I have two... favourites? Is that the right word?


They're called anti-feats.




> The first is the time Worf, a powerful Klingon and valued Starfleet member, had his back broken by a flimsy-looking prop barrel when it fell off a high shelf. One could argue that Worf being defeated in some embarrassing way is not an outlier, but this is either an _incredible_ moment of shame for our poor Klingon... or an incredible feat of _strength_ on the part of the barrel.


Eh... even an empty plastic barrel of that size falling off of a high shelf and hitting someone in the back would be dangerous. It doesn't take a ton of force to break a person's spine, it just takes it being hit in the wrong way. And there's no reason to think that the barrel would be a empty, or light (I've had to move barrels like that around before- even the lightest ones weight a few pounds), considering that it has hazard markings on it. It's a minor special effects failure, but Worf isn't supposed to be so super-humanly tough that being hit by a barrel which would- realistically- weight a few hundred pounds should be something he can shrug off.




> The other is the time the Flash  incarnations of which have been shown sensing a bullet as it hit the back of his neck while unaware and having time to dodge, or rescuing the entire population of a village in the _seconds_ before a nuclear bomb hit it  ran headlong into Deathstrokes sword because the man held it backwards under his arm for a second.
> 
> In both cases, the events get treated with a grim gravitas which only serves to make them even _funnier_.


That's surprisingly common with speedsters in settings full of non-speedsters. On the CW Flash it's _every ****ing episode._ CW Barry is absolutely garbage at using his speed in an even moderately effective manner, to the point where I had to stop watching the show. Someone even made a compilation of Barry's constant, humiliating, inexcusable failures:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9Xh7_XvnFI

And that's just season one. He's done three seasons so far:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Goqct1QYxdY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqZVl_bdhhQ

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## Cikomyr2

> It's an outlier because, outside of Squirrel Girl stories, the villains she defeats aren't portrayed as being vulnerable to things like squirrels. They way she herself is portrayed isn't an outlier as such, but for the villains their showings are outliers on the other end of the spectrum- instances where they're portrayed as being much weaker than they usually are.


So in a way, Squirrel Girl is some.. outlier-causing plot device? She is causing the story of villains to spin in a different way than you'd expect narratively?

I suppose i could propose another similar character: Thanos in Infinity War completely breaks and wrecks the narrative-morality theme of the MCU up to that point. In most MCU movie, heroes win when they do the right thing (most blatant exception is in Captain America movies, where things go to **** because nobody listened to Steve Rogers).

Everyone listens to Steve in Infinity War. Everyone does the Right Character Move, doing painful self-sacrifice, character growth, etc...

And Thanos wipes the whole of them.

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## Tyndmyr

> r: Thanos in Infinity War completely breaks and wrecks the narrative-morality theme of the MCU up to that point.


Thanos is simply a guild leader that had the entire guild funnel him gear. 

Not very heroic, but absolutely effective.

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## BloodSquirrel

> So in a way, Squirrel Girl is some.. outlier-causing plot device? She is causing the story of villains to spin in a different way than you'd expect narratively?


That probably oversells it. Villains in her series/appearances are downplayed as a joke. That's about it.




> I suppose i could propose another similar character: Thanos in Infinity War completely breaks and wrecks the narrative-morality theme of the MCU up to that point. In most MCU movie, heroes win when they do the right thing (most blatant exception is in Captain America movies, where things go to **** because nobody listened to Steve Rogers).
> 
> Everyone listens to Steve in Infinity War. Everyone does the Right Character Move, doing painful self-sacrifice, character growth, etc...
> 
> And Thanos wipes the whole of them.


I don't know about this- The heroes usually do the right thing, and they usually win, but there's little connection between the two. And, in the end, they do win against Thanos. 

I think it's more true to say that Thanos, being the villain who the entire saga is leading up to, breaks the power scale in a narratively appropriate fashion. Defeating him requires far more time, effort, and sacrifice than any of the previous villains. Which is exactly what should happen when you fight the main villain of your entire series. 

The overall theme of the two movies (Infinity War and Endgame) is that in order to win, you have to be willing to make sacrifices. Thanos, who is evil, sacrifices those around him. The heroes refuse to sacrifice other people's lives, and so they can't stop Thanos. But, in the end, the heroes, who are good, sacrifice their own lives in order to defeat Thanos.  

Refusing to sacrifice < sacrificing others < self-sacrifice.

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## TeChameleon

Squirrel Girl seems to have a hidden secondary power of being aggressively reasonable and friendly at people, and them responding appropriately, rather than the usual rage-out of a villain who's been gainsaid in any fashion whatsoever.  In her own series she 'beat' Count Nefaria (Avengers-level Superman-alike baddie) by... teaching him a special way to count on his fingers, which was apparently something he'd been having trouble with?  I don't know, even in context of the story it didn't make a lot of sense to me.

A lot of Silver-age Marvel character feats have been quietly ignored over the years- Thor nearly killed Galactus in their first meeting, Dr. Strange casually blew up a sun, Hulk lifted a mountain range... the list goes on.  Characters have gotten _less_ powerful (often by a significant degree) over the years, then built back up.

Lesse... 

* Dazzler canonically can channel infinite levels of power (she became a temporary herald of Galactus in her own series, not by being given the Power Cosmic like all the others, but by having him expose her to 'Cosmic Noise'- her abilities are powered by absorbing sound- to the point that she could wander in and out of a black hole), although that's been, once again, quietly ignored until such a point that a writer feels like trotting it out again.

* Magneto once one-shot Phoenix-Jean (a 'magnetic bottle that sucked the power out of her like a sponge', if memory serves)

* Booster Gold's forcefield once tanked the planet exploding, when it usually has trouble dealing with anything Superman-level or above punching it (which, while an impressive level of force, is still significantly less than 'planet go boom')

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## Rater202

That wasn't the real Count Nefaria.

The Dream Demon Nightmare was attacking her by making her dream about fights with villains who were allegedly out of her league.

Dorean didn't actually know who Count Nefaria was, however, so her subconscious substituted Count von Count.

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## Ameraaaaaa

Here's 2. 

Donkey kong at one point punched the moon into a volcano. This is for a stronger then normal gorilla. Who doesn't one hit ko little mac (a normal human) in his guest appearance in super punch out for the wii. 

Remember that time harley quinn beat the flash just by ambushing him with a hammer. It was in a recent comics event about therapy for superheroes iirc.

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## BloodSquirrel

> Here's 2. 
> 
> Donkey kong at one point punched the moon into a volcano. This is for a stronger then normal gorilla. Who doesn't one hit ko little mac (a normal human) in his guest appearance in super punch out for the wii.


Nintendo doesn't so much have outliers as it has a complete lack of continuity, or even the pretense thereof. There isn't even an attempt to construct a coherent universe where these characters have a defined power level. They're just mascot designs being pasted onto whatever game Nintendo feels like making.

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## animorte

> Nintendo doesn't so much have outliers as it has a complete lack of continuity, or even the pretense thereof. There isn't even an attempt to construct a coherent universe where these characters have a defined power level. They're just mascot designs being pasted onto whatever game Nintendo feels like making.


Essentially weve deduced that Superman is just a Nintendo character?  :Small Big Grin:

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## The Glyphstone

I suspect if you took some Nintendo characters' "feats" creatively literally, they'd wipe the floor with Superman...

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## Rynjin

You don't even have to get creative. Kirby destroys Superman, mid diff

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## TeChameleon

> You don't even have to get creative. Kirby destroys Superman, mid diff


Eh... *hand waggle*

I'd give it to Kirby... call it 8 out of 10 falls, but ol' Supey has some _seriously_ goofy feats on the fringes.  Like singing gods to death (multiple times, even).  Heck, he's probably destroyed as many dark gods/elder evils/eldritch horrors as Kirby, and that's *saying* something.

All that being said, yeah, most of the time Kirby is going to have a light snack and it's over.

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## Ameraaaaaa

Kirby takes damage from waddle dees. Superman face tanks nukes. I know who wins.

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## Forum Explorer

> Kirby takes damage from waddle dees. Superman face tanks nukes. I know who wins.


Or are Waddle Dees more dangerous than nukes? Food for thought.  :Small Wink:

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## The Glyphstone

Or howbout Mario? Superman's power comes from the light of one star. Mario collects stars like candy, and can have dozens of them at a time. How much damage does a Koopa Troopa do that someone with 20x Superman's strength and toughness is still in danger?

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## GloatingSwine

> Or howbout Mario? Superman's power comes from the light of one star. Mario collects stars like candy, and can have dozens of them at a time. How much damage does a Koopa Troopa do that someone with 20x Superman's strength and toughness is still in danger?


That's the wrong question. Mario's power comes from mushrooms not yellow sunlight.

The right question would be "how powerful would Mario be on Vvardenfell?"

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