The 2-A Squad
Out of all of the characters I reviewed for this massive revision,
Nabu,
Dr. Fate (Kent & Inza Nelson),
The Spectre (Jim Corrigan),
The Phantom Stranger, and
Trigo are the only ones who indisputably meet the criteria for a
2-A ranking in my opinion.
Nabu and
Dr. Fate (Kent & Inza Nelson) are
2-A via their ow personal feats and statements unique to them alone.
The Spectre (Jim Corrigan),
The Phantom Stranger, and
Trigo are
2-A via scaling with the above group.
Nobody else in this assessment scales perfectly with any of these characters, as far as I can tell, meaning they would need their own
2-A feats to qualify for
2-A, none of which I could find.
The 2-B or 2-C Squad
Practically everybody else in this analysis (minus one character I'll mention later) meets the criteria for
2-C at a minimum, and a lot of them scale to each other. So my real challenge was to figure out who in the group (if anybody) met the requirements for
2-B. For those unaware of the requirements, a
2-B character must be capable of destroying 1001 to any higher finite number of universal 4-dimensional space-time continuums under their own power.
Dr. Fate (Eric & Linda Strauss) seemed like a good place to start because they are
canonically one of the weakest Dr. Fate incarnations, but they still have a few good feats.
1. Dr. Fate (Eric & Linda Strauss) fairly casually
erected a shield to protect against a blast that
created universes.
2. Dr. Fate (Eric & Linda Strauss) managed to shatter a forcefield that even the Hindu god Indra could not break, despite him having enough power to
endanger every plane of creation.
The real difficulty with these showings was that it's unclear how powerful they are. They are
2-C at a minimum, but we do not know how many "universes" are being created or how many "planes" there are in creation. There was only supposed to be one universe in DC at this time, but apparently the writer had other plans. I thought taking a closer look at the run as a whole might give me some insight, and sure enough, it did. A few issues in, we get a tour of the entire Dr. Fate multiverse, and perfectly enough,
exactly 1001 planes are described as existing in the story.
Both above listed Fate feats should scale to that description. The second one for obvious reasons, but the first one because it occured
immediately after Mahapralaya, a cataclysmic event in Hindu cosmology that is supposed to
dissolve every realm of creation. The burst of energy
Dr. Fate (Eric & Linda Strauss) shielded from immediately afterward is heavily implied to be the entirety of creation being remade.
All that logic put together means that, embarassingly weak Fate or not,
Dr. Fate (Eric & Linda Strauss) has to be
2-B as a matter of definition. Even if he just barely qualifies. Everybody else mentioned below in this section scales above him.
Dr. Fate (Kent Nelson) is one of the strongest Fate incarnations and specifically stands leaps and bounds above
Dr. Fate (Eric & Linda Strauss).
Dr. Fate (Hector Hall) scales to
Dr. Fate (Kent Nelson) as being his only real competition for
"most powerful Fate," and
Dr. Fate (Inza Nelson) scales just below her husband but not drastically so.
Mordru scales to Dr. Fate (Hector Hall),
The Time Trapper scales to Mordru,
The Infinite Ma scales to The Time Trapper,
Parallax scales above The Time Trapper, and
Darkseid scales above Mordru.
And that should complete the bulk of the job. All above listed characters qualify for
2-B in my opinion. They aren't particularly deep into the tier or anything, but they still qualify.
The Squad I'm Unsure About
There are three characters I am not entirely sure how to scale, but I have estimations for all of them.
1. The Spectre (Hal Jordan)- He should scale above Parallax, making him
2-B at a minimum, but I also recently remembered that he withstood
Emperor Joker's reality warping madness for far longer tha The Phantom Stranger. I don't know if that qualifies him for
2-A, but I thought it was at least worth bringing up. I'd love to hear some opinions on this.
2. Mordru- As a
prominent Lord of Chaos and
self-proclaimed archenemy to
Nabu, you'd imagine
Mordru should scale to
Nabu directly, but he
fights more evenly with
Dr. Fate (Hector Hall), and
Nabu was weakened during
their only real encounter. It seems pretty clear throughout Fate lore that the proper Lords of Chaos and Order are usually
much more powerful than their agents on Earth, so you'd expect
Mordru to swat
Dr. Fate (Hector Hall) like a bug... but
he doesn't. This inconsistency might be somewhat explained
in this scene, which tells us that
Mordru's true form is
a being of pure energy and he's much more constricted when physically incarnating to fight
Dr. Fate (Hector Hall), but it still seems weird to me. For that reason, I propose that
Mordru be given a tier of
2-B, Possibly Higher, but people who scale to him should be kept at a simple
2-B unless they have other feats suggesting something greater.
3. Dr. Fate (Kent V Nelson)- The final Fate incarnation before Flashpoint. Frankly, he wasn't around for long and I don't know much about him. He doesn't necessarily
need a key, but if he gets one, I'd propose
Low 2-C for the time being,
scaling off of our
current ranking for
The Spectre (Crispus Allen). I might revisit him later to see if I can come up with anything better.
One Comment About Capes
A lot of ado was made earlier in this thread about whether or not
Pre-Crisis Superma can be scaled to these revisions, and after much consideration, I think I've decided that he
cannot be.
Our wiki currently rates
Pre-Crisis Superma as
2-C, and honestly, in the context of these feats, I think that ranking is perfect.
Pre-Crisis Superma is occasionally depicted as capable of
damaging or
chipping at Fate tier characters, but he often
needs assistance,
a power up, or
a surprise assault to really
pose a significant threat. Frankly, I think that fits almost naturally with what is being proposed here. It's about what you'd expect from someone on his level going up against Low
2-B opponents, and once you get a little further into the
2-B arena, he basically
becomes an afterthought. I do not recommend upgrading
Pre-Crisis Superma with this thread, nor do I recommend creating a separate thread to upgrade him from the feats discussed here. I think he fits perfectly with these revisions right where he is.
Aaand that's all! Please let me know what you think, if anything needs to be changed, if I missed a character or important feat, etc. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.