| Posted: 15 January 2012 at 1:32pm | IP Logged | 7
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It's true that lists of this nature are essentially meaningless. Even if a consensus could be reached, the characters would change soon, and everything would be cast back into disarray. Wonder Woman becomes a goddess, presumably making her stronger than she was as a mortal, and as a mortal she was on par with Superman. As a goddess, she's likely stronger than the line's flagship super-hero... So that's not going to last long... For awhile, the Thing and the Hulk's strength standings were reversed. Pineapple-Thing was said to be significantly stronger than the Joe-Fixit-Hulk, so much so that Joe had to out-think Ben to win in Hulk #250. Not Ben's finest moment by any stretch... In any case, everything is circumstantial as well as relative. Characters for whom physical strength is a significant attribute are usually as strong as the story requires them to be. If a huge block of machinery is falling towards a small child and the Hulk there to catch it, he will usually be able to do so although it will cause him some strain. If Wonder Man is there, same difference. The Thing, the same. Wonder Woman, the same. Spider-Man will suffer more, but that's only because that's what Spidey does; He suffers. It's a cool way to get the intended audience on the side of your fictional hero. (See also: The Crucifixion.) If the Metal Men are on the scene, it may take all of them to do it, but they will hold up that block. Usually. These days we get any number of stories built around the Failure of the Hero. Spidey had a number of these in his past (His origin is built around one, but that was a failure of character and one that he's heroically sought to rectify since. It wasn't a case of him attempting to stop the burglar and finding there is no way to do so...) These days, it's the most common thing in the world to watch the heroes fail to stop the destruction of a city. Or a planet. Or the death of a team-mate. Failure is the new easy path to drama. Even if the heroes were adept at something before, they will prove to be less so now. Because super-heroing is HARD... And when stuff is hard, sometimes it doesn't always get done right... By the way, this month's issue will be on newstands late... And when we say newstands, we mean not really... Companies seem to have woken up a little to this trope being overused, and have even tried to minimize the destruction previously wrought in some cases by telling us that all the GL's Hal killed were never actually dead. And Coast City has been rebuilt, with most of its original inhabitants coming back there to live. Happy endings! Wait, what that old chestnut about the definition of insanity again...? In any case, these days we're more likely to see the hero push the block of machinery onto the little girl than see him rescue her. Or he won't get there in time... He'll try, but Madame Rouge wraps a stretchy-arm around him at the last second... Or he wedges himself under the block, and the little girl, we'll call her Polly, must crawl inch-by-inch, page-by-agonizing page to safety... Only to be shot in the head by the Red Skull when she's in the clear... Anything really, so long as it might produce a "NOOOOOO!!!" from the hero either in the moment or when they wake up, drenched in flop-sweat night after night... "POOOLLLLLLYYYY!!!" Strength is entirely dependent upon the needs of the story. Way back when the hero was always just as strong as he needed to be. These days, they're likely to be just a little less... Unless the character is a Writer's Pet like the Sentry, Black Adam, World War Hulk, or the tippy-top of the list, the Red Hulk... Who can beat up everybody, thank you veddy much... We can't determine who's stronger because it's all relative. We can only speak in vague generalities based on stories from the past. Next month's storylines are likely to overturn those presumptions anyway. When she was empowered by Black Adam's evil lightning, Mary Marvel could do everything he could do... She maybe could even have taken down the Red Hulk... Or Wonder Tot...!
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