Changing Hulk and other characters' stats with a Varies

[Eficiente]

I was going to make this much later or never as collecting evidence would be a pain, but seeing just how problematic the matter I decided to make it without collecting any evidence. I can only hope for notably experts of Marvel to comment here, otherwise this will keep wasting everyone's time.

This affects Hulk's first key, Amadeus Cho and whatever similar characters we may have.

I propose this: Varies (Empowered by his anger; Fights a variety of diversely powerful characters on a regular basis compared to characters who straight up have a solid tier in base) from Small Building level at worst (Can severely harm, although not instantly kill, the likes of [I'm pretty sure we can list every 9-A in Marvel here, no?], keeping up with them even when outnumbered), up to Solar System level at his best (Has consistently been portrayed as comparable to Thor)

There can be a 5-B part in the middle. The 3-A feats are still outliers due to the fact that having a Varies tier has nothing to do with it.

The minimum is now 5-B, other changes for other characters will be like this:

• Hulk (Amadeus Cho): Varies from 5-B to 4-B
• Red Hulk: Varies from 5-B to 4-B
• She-Hulk: Varies from 5-B to 4-B

 

[Antvasima]

I am fine with a variable tier for the Hulk, but 9-A seems far too low as a lower bound.

 

[Eficiente]

To that I agree, but not in the sense that he shouldn't have that in his profile. He has some rivalry with Wolverine, and has fought many 9-As at once many times, those are things that will always keep happening in the future.

 

[GojiBoyForever]

I'll wait for more input.

 

[Antvasima]

Well, that is more Marvel's ongoing extreme degrees of Plot-Induced Stupidity than that he is intended to be that low. Wolverine can somehow hurt almost anybody with his claws, including Thanos, despite only thrusting them with the force of Captain America.

 

[Eficiente]

It can't really be PIS due to being consistent; This is not something that happens to legit 4-B characters, more or less the same case with 5-B characters. Wolverine can still take hits from him. And lastly, due to this being at his worst, he can just become notably stronger pretty easily.

Something above 9-A but below 5-B would be cool but I'm very sure that he just doesn't fight and harm characters of those levels as much as with 9-A guys.

 

[Antvasima]

Wolverine can consistently harm other characters at or above the Hulk's level as well, including Thor and Thanos. It doesn't make them 9-A either. It is PIS, just systematically ingrained PIS.

 

[Eficiente]

Then again, Wolverine himself can still take hits from Hulk, despite his 9-A durability. I never said that his 4-B claws weren't legit.

 

[Kiryu2012]

I agree with the OP.

 

[Newendigo]

Agree with Eficiente on adding a variable both Hulk and Cholk.

May I add a list of characters that could fall on the Varies group?

 

[Antvasima]

I am fine with a variable tier. I just think that 9-A is far too low except for extreme cases, such as when he was defeated by an ordinary python, but if we count them, we would have to use his High 3-A feats as well.

 

[DanielIH15]

About this, later I would like to point out some things that have to be addressed to measure correctly Hulk strength at his weakest.

 

[MJF6219]

I 100% agree with Ant. If we're going to use hulk's lowest consistent showing, then it would only make sense/be fair to use his highest consistent showing as well (High 3-A), since we already know that Hulk's strength can vary a lot and that Marvel has made it extremely clear that For all intents and purposes, Hulk is suppose to have an infinite level of strength and There's an absolutely ridiculous amount of statements (that can be found in both the comics and in the Official Marvel Encyclopedias/Official Marvel Database books and websites) to back it up, plus Hulk himself has a lot of High tier 3 feats to support that rating.

I was already planning on eventually making a thread addressing how arbitrary it is that we've chosen to Blatantly ignore some of the Hulk's most Impressive feats/and or label them as Outliers, when one of the Main principles of the character Hulk is that he's suppose have infinite strength, Marvel couldn't have made that any clearer, but if we could agree on putting this in is Varies key or something along the lines of that, then I likely wouldn't have to make a massive time consuming thread about this.

 

[Antvasima]

Just to clarify, I don't think that we should use his greatest outliers either upwards or downwards. 4-B is fine as an upper bound.

 

[MJF6219]

@ Ant

Ehh that kinda talk is exactly what I was referring to in my post.

Like how the hell do we consider Hulk having infinite strength as an outlier? Marvel literally considers it as one of Hulk's powers and a staple of the character. If you don't believe me then have fun trying to find an official description of the Hulk's powers that don't have the words/phrases "infinite strength" or "unlimited strength" (or something along the lines of that) in them.

It's like the equivalent of saying Superman's heat vision is an outlier or Spider-Man's Spider Sense is an outlier, is makes zero sense, especially when considering that Hulk has actual feats that support the rating that having infinite strength entails.

Ant, I remember in an old thread you had the idea of giving Hulk a Key for his peak showings of rage, that would use his High 3-A feats. Is that an idea that you are still open to and still see as viable? I'd like to know since if not, then it looks like I got a massive time consuming thread to start working on.

 

[Overlord775]

@Efficente

That can LITERALLY be applied to any Marvel 4-B

Just look at everytime Thor fought with the Avangers

or everytime the Juggernaut foght against the X-Man

or about everytime Ultron showed up

Marvel is in the top 3 most inconsistent verses of all times. power levels are up to the writer's interpretation anf there's been hundreds of writers working at it, that's why we have special rules for it

 

[Hellbeast1]

Disagree with the low end being 9-A honestly

That just feels ridiculously low considering the PIS of characters who bust planets not being able to deck street tiers is remarkably common.

I'd suggest putting him at Thing tier for the low end (for obvious reasons)

Even then I question the validity of Hulk being Variavle

Ares (DC) should have it tho

 

[Antvasima]

A High 3-A Hulk would be far too inconsistent, as it doesn't fit with him struggling against most of his opponents, and would as such turn into a scaling nightmare. This is not going to be accepted, and I don't want to waste time arguing about it. My apologies.

 

[MJF6219]

I never said any thing about his peak showings scaling to anyone, and People on the Thing and Grey Hulk revisions thread seem to think scaling Anyone from Hulk is too inconsistent anyways.

And I understand that he sometimes struggles against certain characters who aren't of that level, but remember, "his power level per definition depends on his rage, so it isn't completely certain", and many People seem to agree with that statement. As the OP stated, Sometimes he struggles against 9-As and then sometimes he wipes the floor with 4-Bs. The whole premise of this thread is to state how Hulks tier can Vary a lot, making it hard to gauge at any given moment.

And to be fair, virtually every one of Hulk's most impressive showings happened either when Hulk was by himself or when he was fighting some strange one off villain that was hardly ever seen again, so they still wouldn't scale to anyone even if my intention was to scale is highest showings to a bunch of characters.

 

[MJF6219]

But like you said, you don't want to argue about this right now so I'll made a big thread of my own addressing this issue later.

 

[Cropfist]

If this is applied, we can not use small building as his low end. Wolverine can only fight Hulk because of claws.

 

[Antvasima]

Ironclad (Marvel Comics) was involved in the Hulk's most blatant High 3-A display, and lots of characters are stronger than the former.

 

[MJF6219]

Yes I recall that feat, but Ironclad isn't the one whose been stated to have infinite strength in basically every known variation of the official Marvel handbooks, encyclopedias, websites, etc is he? Nope, Hulk is. Ironclad being involved in a display of that level only one time means nothing.

 

[Antvasima]

The Hulk is not stated to havel literally infinite strength in the handbooks afaIk, just far above the regular class 100 level, and ranging beyond virtually anybody else.

 

[Overlord775]

@MJF

The problem is that Hulk's peak anger is inconsistent too, for example World Breaker Hulk was ment to be his max possible anger, but he got knocked out by Stark's tech.

 

[DanielIH15]

1) If you see well the scene, he wanted to be defeated, 2) it was revealed later that it wasn't Stark tech, in fact it was modified by The Leader, Modok and Samson to be a Cathexis ray generator, something that siphon gamma and psionic energy from Banner to transfer it to something else. Even from his first appearance, the ray reverts Hulk to Banner because it take all the gamma Hulk has at the moment

 

[The_Impress]

... the 9-A thing is a joke right? It's far better to go from 5-B to 4-B for maintaining logical consistency, as by your logic a 9-B and High 3-A Hulk is possible too. The 5-B lower limit is pretty logical.

In regards to Handbook ratings, didn't we tend to use Marvel Handbooks as a last resort?

 

[Antvasima]

Zark is probably correct.

We use the handbooks to get an idea of what Marvel the company thinks about the relative power levels of the characters.

 

[MJF6219]

Well to be fair, Marvel the company seems to be dead set on thinking the Hulk has infinite strength, they've made that extremely clear. And I just don't think choosing to basically completely ignore this was ever a good idea, since it goes against one of the core elements of his powers.

And yea maybe not every single one of the handbooks lists his strength as infinite, I haven't been able through all those yet. But I have read through numerous of the huge Marvel Encyclopedias, and they've all listed his strength as being infinite.

But as I've said earlier, I'll make a a more in-depth thread about this in the future.

 

[Archangel_1980]

The Hulk does not have infinite strength. At most, the Hulk has unlimited potential strength. It means his strength increases without bound towards infinity without never really reaching it. Hence the Hulk's strength would be, at any point, immeasurably inferior than infinity.

Anyway, the lower bounds of the Hulk's strength should be planetary at least. The upper bounds, based on feats, should remain at solar system level. It is very speculative to postulate higher levels based on his theoretical infinite potential.

 

[MJF6219]

Ehh there are both, a lot of things Hulk has done himself and a lot of statements made about Hulk that contradict that.

And no, it's not speculative at all. Having infinite strength automatically entails a High 3-A rating and Hulk has numerous 3-A to High 3-A feats of his own.

And I'm done arguing about this shit right now, I've got a lot of other stuff I need to be doing instead. I will simply be saving everything else I have left to say about this matter for the future thread I will be making regarding this topic.

 

[Archangel_1980]

The Hulk is not a cosmic entity. His power level, on a regular basis, is consistent with characters around Thor's power level. Hence the statements are more plausibly interpreted as indicatives of infinite potential instead of infinite actual strength.

In fact, there is no statement establishing outright, undoubtedly and without ambiguity, that the Hulk's strength is actually infinite. Even Beyonder's statement can be reasonably interpreted as referencing the Hulk's raw potential.

About the High 3-A feats, they are simply outliers or misinterpretations.

 

[Antvasima]

Yes, and if we counted the "earthquake across infinite planets" feat as High 3-A, we would end up with the same rating for Ironclad and all of the characters stronger than him. Ditto for the "destroyed a pocket universe feat", as it involved the Dark-Crawler, who was later defeated by the Abomination.

 

[Hellbeast1]

Wouldn't that be more universe shaking then anything

 

[Antvasima]

No, the Hulk and Ironclad supposedly caused a vibration felt across infinite planets in the multiverse if I remember correctly.

 

[ByAsura]

Personally, I'm sort of done with this stuff—The Thing being 4-B or Hulk having a variable tier—but the Ironclad feat is unreliable. Firstly, it happened in the crossroads, an inter-dimensional intersectio that acts as a nexus point between different realms. Secondly, the crossroads has different areas with strange effects due to time-space being unstable. This is the issue, by the way.

Anyway, this is kind of derailing and the OP has been edited to address this.

 

[Antvasima]

Okay. We should stop then.

 

[DanielIH15]

About Hulk and Iron Clad doing that, if I remember correctly, the U-Foes were amped or something. And Ironclad is a character that also has variable strength because it depends of his density at the moment (Remember that his primary power is controlling his body's density. He can get weaker decreasing his density, or can get vastly stronger increasing it). Also, in the same issue Hulk was shown as stronger than the Vector repellent force, which were, well, literally repelling EVERYTHING (and not only in that issue, but Vector did the same thing in the previous one).
About the main topic, I'm about to finish the points that I think should be analyzed to determine Hulk tier at his weakest

 

[Antvasima]

It is an outlier, both for Ironclad and the Hulk. The former has never remotely demonstrated infinite strength by increasing his density elsewhere.

 

[The_Impress]

Yes guys, Hulk has infinite strength, same way Saitama can oneshot everything, and Captain Marvel can solo Thanos. Feats matter before statements, and we don't rate a character's "potential" power