Most overrated/Underrated

Would this be the same Cyclops that got whupped by a powerless Storm? :D
As far as overrated:

Freakin' Cable! People @#$%& about Wolverine, but this throw away Liefeld era mook needs to go.

Underrated:

For being Sorcerer Supreme, Doc Strange does seem to get the shaft quite a bit...

Yep, this would be the same Cyclops who, after having his entire life fall apart and becoming an emotional wreck, was put in a situation where he could either kill Storm or admit defeat, and chose defeat.

And then spent a lot of time learning to fight with his eyes shut, to good effect, not to mention at least twelve years as a freedom-fighter without using his powers.

The Cyclops vs. Storm defeat was deliberate - to show how far Scott had fallen at that point in his life.

-Wal

Is Maggie really that powerful??? In the past, he has been depicted as being clearly inferior to Thor, and I doubt someone who could affect the Earth's entire magnetic field would have a hard time beating even the Thunder God.

answer: He broke out of Hercules' bearhug using a magnetic flux pulse. He can redirect the flight paths of Thor's hammer using his powers.

Response: Thor beat him easily on at least one occasion. I only vaguely recall the story, but I believe Thor's hammer, which is mystical, was not susceptible to Magneto's power. It's also possible Thor used Mjolnir to simply absorb whatever energy he was tossing at him (remember, Thor has used his hammer to absorb the energies of Ultron). I could be wrong on this point, but I do know Goldilocks thumped Maggie.

Dr. Archeville: while Doom is indeed the overall greater scientific genius, his armor can't hold a candle to Iron Man's. The last time the pair actually fought was way back in Iron Man #150, and their battle was inconclusive (they met again in Iron Man #250, but they didn't fight). Since then, Iron Man's armor has vastly improved. I doubt the same can be said for the good Doctor's outfit, considering he still has trouble defeating the Thing or the Invisible Woman in single combat. I know Doom has come up with devices that enabled him to defeat the entire FF, but it's odd that he never incorporates these devices into his armor.

answer: Doom is really big on originality. He hates using the same inventions to attack an opponent more than once or twice. Also, you never know if it's Doom or a Doombot.

Response: I agree Doom is big on originality, but what does that have to do with the price of tea in China? The point is, Vic still can't beat Ben or Sue, much less Stark, in single combat. I suppose you could say all or most of those instances in which he lost it wasn't really him, just a Doombot, but that's the ultimate deus ex machina. Heck, Stark has LMDs and Iron Man robots. Why couldn't he use the same excuse whenever he loses?

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The point is, Vic still can't beat Ben or Sue, much less Stark, in single combat.

Doom beat the entire FF at the end of the "Unthinkable" story arc, using only his mind-switching power. Sure, he himself died in the end, but he got Reed to kill Ben, so that counts for somethin'.

And, mano-a-mano, sans their armor (and Doom's magic), I'd bet Doom could take Stark. Stark's picked up some h2h combat skill from his time in the Avengers, sure, but most of his stuff's programmed into his armor. Doom's proved himself to be quite a capable combatant even without his armor, relying solely on his combat training.

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Heck, Stark has LMDs and Iron Man robots. Why couldn't he use the same excuse whenever he loses?

Because far more tales are told of Stark from Stark's POV, and so we would know right off the bat whether or not the Stark that lost was the real deal or an LMD ;) Doom's a villain, and so most tales featuring him aren't told from his POV. In other words, it's a Deus Ex Machina Stark can't use, because (in RPG terms) he's an PC, and Doom's an NPC.

heres my two cents
overated:
doom, i mean come on its all been said
wolverine
captain america depending on who's writing him
iron man what happened to the heart condition
mystique
all these characters who have all become ninja trained [psylock,kitty etc.}

underated:
spiderman
thor
silver surfer he can do anything.
juggernaut he is unstoppable
doctor strange he beat shuma gorath wow.

Stark lost "his heart condition" when he gained an artificial one years ago.

Alabar makes an interesting point about his possible use of other technologies to be implemented into his own suit.

OF THE Many heroes who started out years ago almost all have improved and gained greater power to at least some degree-( she-hulk in strength or some of the young hero's who may of gained better fighting- kitty pryde or Iceman's powers and improved power stunts etc. etc. ) BUT when a hero who's power is based on technology and his own and even the worlds ingenuity he would not have a power limit. AT least not to the extent that many heroes over the years who have seemed to of maxed out.

Of all the top tier heroes no one I could name could of or should of gained more power then IRONMAN. This is not counting temporary power boost story arcs like some of spidermans.( captain universe power?-not sure )

I think some of the reasons they held off adding other technology taken from the ARMOR WARS and other villians is because Marvel writers know it would make him way too powerful. but it seems unrealistic that a true seasoned hero would not take every advantage in combating villiany.

Oh I neglected to mention that I've got a comic in which Wolvie shoots his own adamantium claws through his skull and into his brain. He not only doesn't die, but he gets up only a few seconds later. Now that I think about it, I'm not sure he falls down at all.

Also Scarlet Witch was mentioned. She was responsible for Wonderman being brought back from the dead. She also went crazy and let her power loose completely destroying the Avengers mansion, detonating a zombie Jack of Hearts, taking out Vison and Antman, causing an alien invasion that killed Hawkeye and pretty much wiping the floor with the rest of the Avengers. Apparently that is what she can do when she cuts loose.

Exactly how did the writers get away with retconning going to college and sending Jubes back to high school? I agree that they've really given her the shaft. At one point she was a full X-Man and now she's just a Gen-Xer. At times it's like the writers won't even credit her with being once an X-Man. Like she just happened to be there instead of part of the team. Sad, real sad.

I have always felt that the Original X-Men: Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Ice Man, Beast, and Angel have been underrated due to the amount of higher powered characters that came out well after Xavier brought them together.

Whilce Portacio and Chris Claremonts portrayal of them around X-Factor 63-69 in the early 90's hit the mark with how powerful they should be portrayed.

These attributes that they had in the past and somewhat now, made me think that these guys were indestructable as a team. When illustrated and written by the right people I thought these guys were just the best.

Attributes I saw in them included but are not limited to...

CYCLOPS - Intellegent, Accurate, Super intense and precise control over energy beams that manifest like the Nigra Falls squeezed through his visor. The epitome of self control and leadership.

MARVEL GIRL - Completely in-tune with her team mates needs (even without telepathy), Creative with her Telekinesis, Sassy witted, and just a little mysterious to keep their enemies off balance.

BEAST - Large muscles/large brain, Quick Moving/Quick Thinking, Balanced Body/Balanced inner-self, Technological Sense / Animalistic Sense - A totally perfect mesh of brute force and elegant restraint.

ICEMAN - (at the time magically enhanced Ice Powers) Completely connected to his element of power - Ice. He had the Ice Body, Could produce (based on the artwork) tons of Ice and control it all. Even though his ice had a brittle looking texture he could keep pouring it on and it even had a very organic look to it. You could see that even at these hightened levels of power he was using he was still holding back - a lot. Mostly due to the power restraining belt he had to wear to prevent himself from flash freezing anything in his vicinity.

ARCHANGEL - Yikes. What a mess. But also at the time I was 13 and so confused by the poetic irony of his situation. The Angel that had been tortured, warped in body and mind, and whose wings were no longer completely his own. If I could write Archangel NOW, I would put him through a similar metamorphosis although with not so dark a twist as the whole Angel of Death thing. Maybe the Angel of Super Sci Fi Action. Think Hawkman(DC) meets Silverhawks!! Maybe? nah...

Guess thats why I'm not a writerB)

But Bobbie did let loose in the Inferno Series, Freezing the entire Empire State building well actually I think he froze the whole city cant remember.

Overrated:
Wolvie (Even though he is still my favorite)

Underrated:
I dont know about that one.

Loki made him do it!

I still don't buy the "every time Doom lost, it was Doombot" explanation. There was a lot of characterization and inner thought that Doom gave in many of his appearances. I don't recall Doombots having such thoughts. Yes, they are programmed to BEHAVE like Doom when Vic isn't around, but it doesn't mean they have his genius or creativity.

I didn't read where Doom had Reed kill Ben. Was that an alternate universe story?

Bottom line: I'm not saying Doom is a wimp/loser. What I am saying is that he hasn't lived up to his rep as Marvel's #1 Bad Guy bar none.

BTW, I should add that pretty much any telekinetic is VASTLY underrated. For example, what's to stop Jean Grey from telekinetically stopping the blood flow to the Hulk? Or for that matter, constricting his heart? She doesn't have to kill him if she doesn't want to, but she could easily take him out of action. Guess she doesn't have the ruthlessness or creativity to use her powers that way...

To be fair, if our favorite characters were to use their powers at their maximum levels everytime, and if they were written the way we wanted, then it's possible to argue that any character is the most bad-@#$%&.

I'll not weigh in on under- or over-rated characters, but I will say that there are so many under-used, under-developed characters in the Marvel Universe that they could never create another character again and be the better for it. Instead of introducing 'new, hot' characters, I'd prefer making the ones we already have more compelling.

As always, this is just my personal opinion.

Muthal,

Spiderman is not underrated as he is basically considered the epitome of Marvel heroes. He is the best of the best, bar none. In fact, most of the heroes you listed are just popular heroes. To be underrated you need to be treated poorly yet powerful.

I totally agree on Cyclops. He is the ultimate leader in Marvel, bar none. Granted he was better early on when he had issues with his role, but he is skilled, dedicated and definitely powerful.

Underated:
ManThing....sure, he isn't very smart but he is almost impervious to physical damage and if you feel fear you burn at his touch, how wonderfully creepy. Shame on Marvel for never being able to keep his comic alive.

Son of Satan...come on, what a waste of talent and power, how much more underutilized could a character be? That Netheranium trident was awesome...I liked him better than the original Ghost Rider...his brief comeback wasn't handled very well either...Marvel is really bad at horror comics, they create cool charatcers and let them die from lack of use.

you guys might laugh but I don't care
as the most underated villian of all time
DOCTOR BONG
Sure he was in Howard the Duck, not a hero comic but his powers were insane:
He was a genetic engineer on par with the High Evolutionary (he turned animals into quasi-human servants and created clones)
He had sonic manipulation of a rediculious rank (I'd say Shift Y) because he could not only destroy things and kill people, by striking his golden bell shaped helmet with metal ball where his left hand had been, but teleport his entire castle to the Himylayas, or send his victims on a one way ride to a desolate place (they never explained exactly how...so maybe he had a device...).
His resources where on par with a small, wealthy country.
All in all, he was a nuerotic version of Dr. Doom.

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I still don't buy the "every time Doom lost, it was Doombot" explanation. There was a lot of characterization and inner thought that Doom gave in many of his appearances. I don't recall Doombots having such thoughts. Yes, they are programmed to BEHAVE like Doom when Vic isn't around, but it doesn't mean they have his genius or creativity.

Who ever said that every time Doom lost, it was a Doombot? I'm just saying that Stark can't use the same defense with his LMD's, b/c he's a PC, Doom's an NPC (and so the GM/Editors can more easily 'cheat' with Doom).

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I didn't read where Doom had Reed kill Ben. Was that an alternate universe story?

Nope, Mainstream MU. At the time, Dooms' mind was in Ben's body, holding Johnny in a nasty back-breaking bodylock and threatening to kill him, and basically taunting Reed "The only way to kill me is to kill Ben!". Though, actually, come to think of it, I believe it was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who actually fired the killing shot, not Reed; I'll need to go re-check the ish; it was part of the "Unthinkable" story-arc (one of the best ever, IMO, though Warlock absolutely hates it).

Richards brought him back to life, though, after storming Heaven and taking Ben's soul back (and the F4 chatted with God, who loked an awful lot like Jack Kirby). (I'm being 100% serious, too)

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For example, what's to stop Jean Grey from telekinetically stopping the blood flow to the Hulk? Or for that matter, constricting his heart? She doesn't have to kill him if she doesn't want to, but she could easily take him out of action. Guess she doesn't have the ruthlessness or creativity to use her powers that way.

Ruthlessness, no, which is why she's classified as a Hero, not an Anti-Hero or Villain. Which is just fine in my book; if I want to see the "practical" and "realisitc" and "pragmatic" use of superpowers, I'll read The Authority :p

being populer is often what causes a character to become overated. example wolverine populer and overated.as to being underated is to have writers not respecting or not using heroes at there potential.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/01/2005 10:06AM by muthal the cursed.

It was X-Man Al who suggested you never know if you've beaten Doom or a Doombot. I don't like that explanation for Doom's many defeats. Like I said, it's deus ex machina and inconsistent with the Doombots.

> Apocalypse: The guy is immortal, has complete control over
> every molecule of his body and can amp Caliban up to be an
> actual threat. Now why is it that every plan of his that
> takes eons to plot ends up getting unraveled in two seconds?

Yes, but one of those little known facts is that you can attribute any stupid thing Apocalypse does to... Apocalypse Bots!

Yes... it sounds silly but it's true. I distinctly recall one of wolverine's 'deluxe format' one shots where he fought apocalypse in the savage land or whatever, and when all was said and done 'that' apocalypse was revealed to be nothing but a robot - a rogue one at that. Who knows just how many of the Apocalypse appearances were just artificial entities?

Suddenly being revealed to need a 'recharge' every hundred or so years? Hmmm... potential Apocalypse Bot!

Suddenly going stupid and trying to become a 'cosmic being' after every other appearance had him simply being the biggest proponent of darwinism on earth? Hm... potential Apocalypse Bot!

All the times he got 'dead' but was revealed to have 'got better' or blah blah... Yep, potential Apocalypse Bot!

Not that this is necessarily the case, but it seemed like most of Apocalypse's appearances had a constant theme until the original writer left X-Factor, then suddenly Apocalypse got all stupid (at least in the sense that he had a different motivation from appearance to appearance). The only thing missing is a big 'reveal' like in fantastic four 350 or whatever, when Doom returned from the time stream and caused one heck of a ruckus, and revealed that he'd been gone since the Secret War - and that everything going on had been doom bots... heh.

Which, incidentally, irked me because the rest of the marvel universe conveniently forgot about that after the very next issue - his spiffy new Prometheum armor (gained in excalibur) and all.

But i ramble, 'cause it IS late.

Underrated:

The Vision - With just a bit of flexibility from the Judge regarding interpreting the rules on his density shifting, you can easily end up with the most powerful avenger, heck, the most powerful non-cosmic superhero out there. He can avoid almost all attacks by becoming intangible and then using that "solidification" attack to ignore body armor. Very few foes could possibly resist him for long. Even if the judge does not allow shifting within the same round, the VIZ can stay at MNS density indefinitely with MNS strength and MNS Body resistance. Not BAD at all. He is a little slow but how many villains can strike for more than MNS damage? In addition, VIZ has life support and regeneration powers. He is one tough customer.

Hawkeye- Don't laugh, but Hawkeye is one underrated Hero. First of all, he has been shown having access to an "Adamantium Arrow". And you thought Wolverine's claws were tough? How about getting hit by them from a distance? He rolls on the MNS level and has a good chance of getting a bullseye or Kill result if he needed it. He also has explosive arrows and since most write ups and comic stories show him having the ability to fire off 3 arrows in 1 round, he can connect for 3 X Amz damage. He might be allowed to kit bash an arrow with 3 explosive tips on it for MNS-UNE type explosive damage. He also has a lot of versatility with sleeping gas arrows, shock arrows, nets, flares, etc. He can disorient foes that he can't defeat alone. A great guy to have on a team.

The New Mutants - Ok this is more encompassing, but this is one group of powerful youngsters and when people played my games, I never heard.. can I substitute "INSERT NEW MUTANT HERE" for "INSERT X-MEN HERE". After a while, I even let people know that they could role play anyone who lived in Xavier's mansion except PROF X.

We've got Karma, a mutant that has UNE level mind control. She's almost unstoppable.
We've got Mirage - another powerful mental attack that with some creativity can become devastating.
Magma - Fairly powerful array of powers generally at the MNS lvel.
Cannonball - MNS type charging attack and invulnerability.
Sunspot - useless - but oh well.
Wolfsbane - not that powerful but with some great tracking/intuition related powers, could support character.

Overall a very underrated group of heroes.

In DC I would have went with Plasticman and Martian Manhunter as underrated but they proved us wrong the last few months/years :)