The Coming of the Superheros (RAR!)

[Majin Gojira]

Since the word Superhero is 102 years old, I had a fun, if evil, concept to run through.

Before starting, we're going to define what Superheroes are. They must meet 3 of the following criteria.

1. Have extraordinary abilities or skills.

2. Have a special outfit/costume/form for heroics, distinctive 'look', or double life/Secret Identity.

3. A proper superhero name. Titles and epithets do not count. (IE: Usagi Tsukino is “Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon”, but only ‘Sailor Moon’ is a superhero name.)

4. Have adventures primarily set within or near a contemporary setting of ‘the modern world’ as it was written at the time. (IE: 30 minutes into the future/next Sunday AD is good, but distant future or past does not.)[/list]

Over 100 Days in 2017 (starting April 1st to make things funnier), Superheroes start showing up in chronological order. They are, roughly, in their 'best' form. In terms of character and powers, think of how they are or would be portrayed in the best adaptations known (IE: The MCU, The DCAU, Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, etc. Or, in another way, they are collectively written by Bruce Timm, Paul Dini, Joss Whedon, J. M. S., The Russo Brothers, Warren Ellis, Greg Weisman, Dwayne McDuffie, Gail Simone, etc. Or, whoever's running with them are considered "The Best"). This also largely describes how powerful they are. Think of how Superman is portrayed int he DCAU, and that is the general "Cap" on non-reality warping characters.

They also come with their supporting cast (IE: Superman brings the Daily Planet Staff among others, Batman has Alfred and Wayne Enterprises, etc).

The characters who arrive are Heroes or Anti-Heroes (IE: The Punisher), or Villains who have had reform streaks that were particularly well received (IE: Harley Quinn, The Secret Six, that time the Riddler was a PI, etc.).

They arrive as if their civilian identities and resources were always there, but they weren't always there yesterday.

They all seem to have their powers, and even those who are 'human' seem to have the ability to shrug of concussions, be 'at the right place a the right time', and heal remarkably well from even supposedly crippling injuries.

Wikipedia has a decent timeline to superhero appearances. Just subtract 1917 from their first appearance date to get which 'day' they show up.

Notable absences (listed in the article definition of Superhero) include Sherlock Holmes, Buffy Summers, The Doctor, Godzilla (with other "Heroic" kaiju like Kong and Mothra), Robocop, and Harry Dresden.

The questions I pose are thus:

1) Is this a help or a hindrance overall? Can the heroes work together to stave off real-world problems, or are what few villains who come along for the ride going to be too much to handle?

2) Which characters do you think will be able to "Change the world" the most?

3) If you are the only person who realizes who is who when they show up (IE: Only you remember Superman, everyone else remembers some pastiche -- and while you can look the characters up online still, no one else can even see the screens you bring up), how do you handle this "Power"?

4) Which is going to be more dangerous to the way things balance go forward: The Powers brought in, or the resources (IE: The Wayne Fortune, The Daily Planet, etc).

5) Remember: 2017 is the year Trump took office. How do heroes react to THAT?

[Solauren]

What about heroes that just don't work in our world? (Based on the Timeline you listed)

For example: John Carter of Mars (Human displaced to Mars), Conan the Barbarian, Buck Rogers (Human frozen for 500 years, reappearing in his own future with a FTL civilization on Earth).

[Imperial528]

Do heroes who later became villains appear alongside the more steady-state heroes?

What about villains who are villainous in their setting, but not to the audience? (E.g. break the law or work outside of it, do shady things, but follow a moral code and ultimately stand for what's right on a level) Do they qualify as anti-heroes?

How do the heroes perceive our world? They get incorporated in apparently seamlessly, but many vital aspects of their worlds are no longer present. How is this handled?

Anyhow, onto the questions. Mind, other than the web serial Worm and Marvel films I'm not really familiar with superhero media, so I'm working from a limited knowledge base.

1. Given the sheer lack of villains, and that those that do come along are considered reformed, I think the heroes will end up doing a good deal of good work. Though how long that will last until heroes start becoming an issue of political concern is the real modifier of their impact.

2. I frankly don't know. There are far too many to be able to determine what will happen, especially with how they'll interact. Quite a few heroes were driven to the heights of their accomplishments due to a sense of duty derived from the threats their world faced. Now living in a world without those threats, I wouldn't be surprised if otherwise high-impact characters toned things down.

3. This depends on the answers to my questions, really.

4. If the powers are wholly unique and immutable, unable to be passed down or invoked in other people, the resources are the most likely factor. Otherwise, the powers.

5. Distasteful as Trump will likely be to a significant number of heroes, well, they're heroes. They play by the rules and follow the law. Though the anti-heroes might make some trouble. I wouldn't really mind that sort of headache inflicting itself on Trump, so long as it never escalates to violence.

However, as far as future politics goes: Weaver 2020.

[Formless]

hilariously, according to the qualifications you stipulate, no characters are even going to appear on April 1'st. In fact, it won't be until the 13'th of April that The Shadow de-fictionalizes (he first appeared in radio in 1930), and he barely qualifies. But then, four days later we get Mandrake the Magician on the 17'th and on the 18'th we get Dr Occult (1935 in comics), which is appropriate, because if there is one thing you can take away from all this it is that magic changes fucking everything. Having a pair of superheros around who specialize in the arcane definitely helps mitigate what happens as the real crazy shit hits the fan later.

See, to answer the question "who will change the world the most", the real answer is "whichever magic-using character leaks the secret of spellcasting first." It doesn't matter if its Dr. Strange, Shazam/Captain Marvel, or one of the many, many Magical Girls who appear in Japan a few months down the road (and if Kyube appears on July 3'rd everyone is fucked-- its kind of hard to have the Madoka crew appear without him). If magic can be used by even a fraction of the Earth's population, then it doesn't matter that no villains are appearing, Earth will have plenty of homebrew villains dabbling in the Dark Arts before long seeking any edge they can over the government and general public. Its likely that if this happens, many of the magical characters who wouldn't otherwise go public, will. Paranormal investigators will become a public commodity and probably get government mandates before long in order to find countermeasures. Conveniently, having sorcerers for cops will help police mutants and Kryptonians.

But perhaps the most influential lot I can think of in that worst case scenario will be on the 26'th of June when the characters from Lyrical Nanoha appear, because they bring with them an entire society of Magic users living just out of reach in another dimension (or on another planet, depending on how you interpret the Nanoha-verse). I know, its a bit much, but not more so than the Green Lantern Corps arguably. Plus, Nanoha Takimachi does tick off three of the four boxes to qualify as a superhero, at least when she is on Earth rather than Mid-Childa. Normally the Time-Space Administrative Bureau wouldn't get involved in Earth's affairs, but of all the people to appear they seem among the most likely to notice the severe reality warping that is going on and care about it as a de-facto issue to be addressed. As far as they knew, Mages are very rare among Terrans, and there are no magical societies or traditions here. But now, you have dozens of public figures at least who can do magic, a tradition in Tibet that is essential to multiple magic users in comic books (I don't... really know why, but a lot of magic using Superheroes have a link to Tibet for some reason) and likely many more people who are trying to replicate their feats for various purposes (and likely succeeding since many comic book villains also use magic), and that's absolutely going to get noticed. Plus, tell me John Constantine wouldn't find Gil Greyham out on the English countryside living out his (forced) retirement with his familiars. Its gonna happen, or else Batman will find him instead. So now you are looking at first contact between Earth and an inter-dimensional/interplanetary/interstellar society of motherfucking technomages. In light of that, and in light of the fact there are still other similar cultures like the Green Lantern Corps out there, I think the question of how superheroes react to President Trump is a bit moot.

Although I'm sure all the Steve Ditco characters will approve of his being in office and will surely remember voting for him.

So I think that rather nicely deals with questions #1, 2, 4, and 5. Question #3 just seems rather... strange to me. I highly doubt characters with the level of intelligence and investigative skill as Batman and many other DC comics heroes will fail to notice even if their memory has been tampered with. I mean, "DC" literally stands for "Detective Comics" after all. Granted, there won't be immediate red flags like there will be for the aforementioned Mid-Childans, but the nature of the different comic book universes that will now be interacting is just different and contradictory enough that they will know something is not right. I mean, you have entire cities popping into existence to enable Batman, Superman, the Power Rangers, and many others appear out of nowhere, because that's part of their mythologies. To a superhero, the city is a supporting character, and cramming everyone into Manhattan has always been more of a Marvel comics thing than it is for anyone else. Yeah yeah, Metropolis and Gotham are based on Manhattan, but canonically are in the Midwest and Jersey respectively. I'm sure that, even if I were the only one who remembered, if I said that anywhere online I would find myself being questioned by Batman in no time. And again and again by about a dozen other fictional detectives, until I lose my mind.

[bilateralrope]

How many will decide to not put on their masks ?

Either because they don't feel that the world doesn't need them to be a superhero or because they could do far more good in their civilian identities. For example, Clark Kent spending his time as a reporter who doesn't have much reason to fear people trying to kill him.

[FaxModem1]

oh, New York City is going to have a lot of mob and corrupt politicians and corrupt bureaucrats thanks to the Shadow alone. This is either going to lead to other forces who appear afterwards trying to stop him due to the whole 'no killing' rule, or them focusing on larger problems. We're going to see whole entire levels of corruption in American society be removed thanks to all the heroes popping up out of the woodworks, followed by potential superhero gang wars over what the correct course of action to do is.

[Majin Gojira]

What about heroes that just don't work in our world? (Based on the Timeline you listed)

For example: John Carter of Mars (Human displaced to Mars), Conan the Barbarian, Buck Rogers (Human frozen for 500 years, reappearing in his own future with a FTL civilization on Earth).

Not included. I mean, if you want to consider them, you'd only really have to worry about Barsoom being Mars (as well as other inhabited planets Burroughs set up).

But Buck Rogers would be a stiff, and others like Conan, Zorro, the Scarlet Pimpernel, the lone ranger, would be a matter of the historical or archeological record only.

Do heroes who later became villains appear alongside the more steady-state heroes?

I feel like that should be a "Yes" even though that's a big can of worms.

What about villains who are villainous in their setting, but not to the audience? (E.g. break the law or work outside of it, do shady things, but follow a moral code and ultimately stand for what's right on a level) Do they qualify as anti-heroes?

Yes.

How do the heroes perceive our world? They get incorporated in apparently seamlessly, but many vital aspects of their worlds are no longer present. How is this handled?

They basically show up with what they need to function as heroes (IE: Black Panther has Wakanda and Vibranium, Aquaman has Atlantis, Magic Exists, etc.).

hilariously, according to the qualifications you stipulate, no characters are even going to appear on April 1'st.

There is one that meets 3/4 that you might not suspect. He is missing only a Nom de Guerre.

Sherlock Holmes.

But few would notice him at first.

I originally worked out a brief rundown of famous/big names (and those that amused me) for this post but decided against it.

Had Tarzan and "Doc" Savage there too.

the real answer is "whichever magic-using character leaks the secret of spellcasting first."

Latest it would be would occur after May 25th as that date brings in Devilman, and thus ... Satan. Whose whole plan is to stoke fear through the reveal of demons and let humanity self destruct. Eventually.

By the time Kyube shows up, he might just slide right in. Though Madoka's effect is linked directly to how many time loops Homura puts things through...

Though let's also remmber magic being revealed also comes with, or around the same time as, gods showing up.

Paranormal investigators will become a public commodity and probably get government mandates before long in order to find countermeasures.

Someone will call themselves Ghostsbusters since ... they don't quite fit the criteria.

How many will decide to not put on their masks ?

Either because they don't feel that the world doesn't need them to be a superhero or because they could do far more good in their civilian identities. For example, Clark Kent spending his time as a reporter who doesn't have much reason to fear people trying to kill him.

I had a similar thought. Batman and Superman aren't going to be as affecting in changing things in the world as either Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent. And then there's Lois Lane. Not even God is going to be able to help someone who gets in her crosshairs.

oh, New York City is going to have a lot of mob and corrupt politicians and corrupt bureaucrats thanks to the Shadow alone.

Not quite.

Think of it like this.

A hero doesn't bring their villains unless they are directly related to their existence. IE: Superman doesn't bring in Lex Luthor. Kon-El, however, has to bring in Luthor since he is half his DNA. Batman doesn't bring in the Joker. But anti-hero Harley Quinn does.

Poison Ivy, the Riddler, and Secret Six (including Bane) come in on their own merits.

So, the corrupt politicians and mobsters he's targeting would be "Natives" at first.

This is either going to lead to other forces who appear afterwards trying to stop him due to the whole 'no killing' rule, or them focusing on larger problems. We're going to see whole entire levels of corruption in American society be removed thanks to all the heroes popping up out of the woodworks, followed by potential superhero gang wars over what the correct course of action to do is.

A lot of the early pulp types were pretty ruthless. Though I doubt a MCU/DCAU type adaptation would include Doc Savage lobotimizing his defeated foes.

The superhero gang war might be a long way off because, well, Japan. Japan has this nasty habit of having their heroes who fight get their powers from the evil they confront. So, Kamen Rider brings in Shocker. Devilman brings in Satan. Cyborg 009 needs Black Ghost to exist. Voltes V has the Boazanians. GaoGaiGar, the Zonder.

The number of mecha-building Evil Empires is going to cause a pile-up as each tries to take over the world one monster at a time.

[Tribble]

Well, the Dragonball team would likely curb stomp a lot of the nasties should they should up - even their lower tier members are at least planet busters at this stage, while higher tier like Goku can potentially punch the universe apart.

[Majin Gojira]

Well, the Dragonball team would likely curb stomp a lot of the nasties should they should up - even their lower tier members are at least planet busters at this stage, while higher tier like Goku can potentially punch the universe apart.

Sadly, they fail 2 criteria. Dog President of earth doesn't lend itself to "the modern world" very well. And without hero names....

Besides, remember the cap.

[Elheru Aran]

Well, the cops aren't going to be super happy with the bump in vigilante action. Punisher and similar antiheroes in particular are going to tick them off. Possibly some liaison with the more 'law-abiding' superheroes to bring them in; there's precious little Punisher could do against Superman if Supes decided to go after him, unless Frank can get his hands on some Kryptonite (something which I wouldn't put past him).

More later...

[Tribble]

Well, the Dragonball team would likely curb stomp a lot of the nasties should they should up - even their lower tier members are at least planet busters at this stage, while higher tier like Goku can potentially punch the universe apart.

Sadly, they fail 2 criteria. Dog President of earth doesn't lend itself to "the modern world" very well. And without hero names....

Besides, remember the cap.

Dog President of Earth acts far more like a president than the current US President does (and would likely get at least as many votes), so IMO they’d still qualify.

At the very least Master Roshi in his guise as Jackie Chum could count.

Edit: and of course Mr Satan; how could I have forgotten him???

[Formless]

You know, unless you use the MCU as inspiration, Manhattan is going to be overcrowded with superheroes. When you look at a map of where all the Marvel characters come from, you notice that most of the villains don't even come from the US, but most of the heroes are based in fucking New York. Another map representing multiple publishers shows just how bad it is, with there being eight total categories by publisher and more than half of the map is covered in Marvel characters. In fact, the only mainstream DC superhero team based in New York City proper is The Watchmen. A map of where the DC superheroes are all located does reveal an East Coast bias (and that the lesser known JSA is also in Manhattan), but its not nearly as bad.

The MCU only barely dodges this by having the Avengers converge in New York after doing most of their adventuring elsewhere first in their standalone movies. Iron Man mostly does shit in California before the founding of the Avengers. The X-Men also dodge this by having their stories set all over the United States, although they are still headquartered in upstate New York. From what I can tell, the Midwest will hardly notice a thing in this scenario, because no one in the industry cares about Flyover Country.

If you are in California, then you mainly have the (teen) Titans, Green Arrow, one of the Green Lanterns, and a shitload of Power Rangers. I mean, some of those cities don't have a state specified, but several of them have harbors, beaches and bays, so they have to be on the coast. I am happy at least that Colorado will have a superhero team around...

[Majin Gojira]

You know, unless you use the MCU as inspiration, Manhattan is going to be overcrowded with superheroes. When you look at a map of where all the Marvel characters come from, you notice that most of the villains don't even come from the US, but most of the heroes are based in fucking New York. Another map representing multiple publishers shows just how bad it is, with there being eight total categories by publisher and more than half of the map is covered in Marvel characters. In fact, the only mainstream DC superhero team based in New York City proper is The Watchmen. A map of where the DC superheroes are all located does reveal an East Coast bias (and that the lesser known JSA is also in Manhattan), but its not nearly as bad.

The MCU only barely dodges this by having the Avengers converge in New York after doing most of their adventuring elsewhere first in their standalone movies. Iron Man mostly does shit in California before the founding of the Avengers. The X-Men also dodge this by having their stories set all over the United States, although they are still headquartered in upstate New York. From what I can tell, the Midwest will hardly notice a thing in this scenario, because no one in the industry cares about Flyover Country.

If you are in California, then you mainly have the (teen) Titans, Green Arrow, one of the Green Lanterns, and a shitload of Power Rangers. I mean, some of those cities don't have a state specified, but several of them have harbors, beaches and bays, so they have to be on the coast. I am happy at least that Colorado will have a superhero team around...

I remembered something, a while Back I searched Marvel, DC, and other wikis, and International Hero's main website, and figured out which places have the most superhumans.

The US has the most: almost 70% of Superhumans are Americans or set up shop there. 39,000 of them.
Japan is next with 6000 of them.
Great Britain follows with 2000 superheroes/powered individuals.
Canada has 1300.
Germany: 1100.
Russia: 1000.
France: 500
Fictional European Nations: 490.
China; 480
Fictional African Nations: 380.
Australia: 340.
Italy: 280
Greece: 240
Egypt: 230
Mexico: 220
Ireland and the Philipenes: 175
India: 165
Brazil: 159
Spain: 141
Fictional Asian Countries: 100

It gets less from there. I counted 56,000 of them for the database. I tried to get as many as I could. It was pretty nuts.

These are rough estimates, of course. But yeah, America is totally overflowing with supers. But there are more out there than you may realize.

[bilateralrope]

Devilman brings in Satan.

Is there someone else who will bring in a different Satan ?

How will those Satans react to each other ?

[Majin Gojira]

Devilman brings in Satan.

Is there someone else who will bring in a different Satan ?

How will those Satans react to each other ?

Aside from Devilman's ... (and also Demon Lord Dante's)

The original Marvel Black Widow, Satana, and Daimon Hellstrom bring in a Satan on their own. Marduk Kurios.

Ghost Rider brings in Mephisto, who is another, distinct Satan from the ones of the above. This one likes making deals.

Sadao Mao from "The Devil is a Part Timer" just wants to work at a fast food restaurant and not cause trouble.

We also have Darkseid to worry about. Thanks, Orion!

Spawn brings us Malebogia.

That's 6 at least. But Devilman's is probably the most actively dangerous, though maybe not the most powerful.

The God of that world is a petty dick, so that might be worse.

[FaxModem1]

To be perfectly honest, this would seem like the best kind of divine intervention. There's climate change, corruption, war, natural disasters, plagues, world hunger, famine, etc.

For a lot of comic book idealists, it would seem like paradise might be around the corner with all these good intentioned powerful people trying to improve the world.

If there's such a time as a time for superheroes, that time is now....

[Solauren]

Considering some of the Superheroes bring along multinational corporations, and some seriously advanced tech (including access to alien tech), in addition to creating new industries, odds are they can fix a lot of our current environmental issues.

Off the top of my head, the corporations the come along are....

Wayne Enterprises
Stark Industries
Queen Industries
Kord Enterprises
Palmer Tech
Pym Tech
Cyberwere (Mister Terrific), if it hasn't been sold to Waynetech yet.

Plus you might get LexCorp as Lex Luthor is now technically a superhero, and has uses alter-egos at time.

Now, toss on people like Reed Richards.....

[Formless]

Yeah, but how many of those companies actually have tech that is really more advanced than what we already have, in the relevant fields? And how many of them keep their tech a trade secret because it gives their rich, asshole superhero (or supervillain) boss an edge over criminals, as Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne are both prone to doing? In the MCU Tony Stark actually fights Congress to keep his technology out of the government's hands (even though I'm told that in real life they would likely just declare Eminent Domain under the pretext of national security, and pay him all the billions in compensation). Plus (ironically), his company is in the Military Industrial sector, not the energy sector.

I still think that in this context the flood of multinational corporations is nowhere near as relevant as the introduction of magic and the extraterrestrial/extradimensional factions brought in by the Defictionalization event. Wayne Enterprises makes... I dunno, sonar systems(?); the TSAB have interstellar warships and teleporters, and the Asgardians are literally the Norse Gods. Tell me Wayne Enterprises and Stark Industries are in even footing with those two. Make me laugh.

[Formless]

You know, I was thinking about this some more and a thought occurred to me. How many Mutants are there around the world in The X-Men comics? And given that most are just trying to live out their lives in peace rather than joining sides, how many of them would get pulled into our world in this scenario?

[Solauren]

Yeah, but how many of those companies actually have tech that is really more advanced than what we already have, in the relevant fields? And how many of them keep their tech a trade secret because it gives their rich, asshole superhero (or supervillain) boss an edge over criminals, as Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne are both prone to doing? In the MCU Tony Stark actually fights Congress to keep his technology out of the government's hands (even though I'm told that in real life they would likely just declare Eminent Domain under the pretext of national security, and pay him all the billions in compensation). Plus (ironically), his company is in the Military Industrial sector, not the energy sector.

I still think that in this context the flood of multinational corporations is nowhere near as relevant as the introduction of magic and the extraterrestrial/extradimensional factions brought in by the Defictionalization event. Wayne Enterprises makes... I dunno, sonar systems(?); the TSAB have interstellar warships and teleporters, and the Asgardians are literally the Norse Gods. Tell me Wayne Enterprises and Stark Industries are in even footing with those two. Make me laugh.

Never claimed it. I was talking about LOCAL tech development we know can happen. I don't see Asgard or TSAB going 'hey, want us to fix all your problems for you?'

And MCU tony, as of the first Avengers movie, was working on Green energy, complete with his rather large tower being run on it's own, environmentally safe, reactor. One smaller then the one at Stark Industries.

Now, scale that up to replace all coal plants in the United States, North America, etc.

Wow, Tony Stark, a local, just cleaned up the energy sector.

No alien intervention needed.

[Formless]

Never claimed it. I was talking about LOCAL tech development we know can happen. I don't see Asgard or TSAB going 'hey, want us to fix all your problems for you?'

Not the Asgardians, no, but there are others in the Superhero world who are more interventionist. And in the case of the TSAB, what I was saying isn't that they will step in and save us, but rather that they would likely begin the process of first contact as a result of this incident. Some of their own member worlds have technology inferior to our own, it turns out. for instance, their former nemesis, the Belka, were schizophrenic in their technological development, which we know because in the Vivid Manga we get flashbacks to that time and see that horse drawn carriages were still in use by members of the royalty for everyday travel. Yet they also had war robots and huge fuckoff spaceships . Meanwhile the TSAB's capital isn't even the most technologically developed world they have encountered, since the average Mid-Childan lives a 21'st century lifestyle and drives an SUV, while the Eltrians from the PSP games and recent movies are busy colonizing their solar system because their planet is dying. The TSAB's criteria for first contact appears to be based on awareness of magic more so than technological development, and again this incident blows the lid clean off that secret.

So like I said, there are some much more interventionist comic book factions, and one that immediately springs to mind are the Green Lantern Corps. The mission of the Green Lanterns is to protect the universe, and it turns out that they imprisoned the Black Lantern avatar of Death on Earth. Ironically, the only reason they treat Earth as a backwater is precisely because they don't want to call attention to this fact. However, its explained that this is why there are so many Green Lanterns based on Earth-- far more than would otherwise be necessary. I'm pretty sure they would want to immediately investigate this just to be sure, if nothing else, that no one makes an attempt to grab the power of the Black Lantern and start a Zombie Superhuman Apocalypse (again).

Maijin Gojirra said that Harley Quinn brings along the Joker into our universe, so its not like there are actually no supervillains for the Corps and others to worry about. Just far fewer than exist natively in their own realities because relatively few have such an intimate connection to a hero or anti-hero's backstory.

(speaking of, does Magneto come into this because he's technically Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver's father in the comics? Or will this be like in the MCU where they cheated their origin story to make them not-mutants, and thus outside of Fox Studio's exclusive use contract?)

And MCU tony, as of the first Avengers movie, was working on Green energy, complete with his rather large tower being run on it's own, environmentally safe, reactor. One smaller then the one at Stark Industries.

Now, scale that up to replace all coal plants in the United States, North America, etc.

Wow, Tony Stark, a local, just cleaned up the energy sector.

No alien intervention needed.

Yes and no. Yes, Tony Stark has Fusion power (hell, DCAU Bruce Wayne has fusion power), though I didn't know he was looking to commercialize it in the MCU; but no, that's not going to save the world. Did you know that current researchers are saying fusion power is no longer a "perpetually 30 years in the future" kind of thing? All of the basic science is done, now all the research is in the materials science and engineering half of the problem. In fact, there is a startup company already saying they will get net power gain from a fusion reactor by 2022 and put reactors on the grid by 2030. That's in my parent's lifetime-- when I told them about this they couldn't believe it was happening. But that's also 11 years down the road assuming their best estimates turn out to be accurate. Exciting, but there are understandably obstacles besides the obvious technological ones (which are still not insubstantial). You need the deuterium and tritium fuel for the reactors. I know its not impossible to find that on Earth, but you still need to set up mining operations. You also need to sell the public on the technology because it needs to replace what is already there, and that will take time and money to do. Now, its obviously worth it and not just because its green energy-- currently in the US your average power plant is about 40 years old IIRC, and people have run the numbers and concluded that the upkeep costs are now so high they do need replacing, preferrably with renewable energy (since its not 2030 yet). But its still a painful transition process, because you have to actually remove the existing plants before you can put in these Stark Industry Tokamaks/Green energy. I mean, we already have the ability to replace significant parts of the grid with clean energy solutions, but we haven't for a myriad of reasons. Introducing a revolutionary new power source like fusion is only step one. What about steps 2 through 12? (or however long the list turns out to be)

[Imperial528]

Are any of the heroes that will show up capable of destroying a planet? Or at least stripping the crust from one?

[Formless]

Are any of the heroes that will show up capable of destroying a planet? Or at least stripping the crust from one?

The Green Lantern Mogo is a planet. If he wants to, he can and has just thrown other planets into the sun.

[Imperial528]

Yes, but does he fall within the cap outlined in the OP? That's what I'm wondering: if heroes of that capability will show up at all, because I am not particularly familiar with the DCAU so the reference given in the OP doesn't mean much for me.

[Formless]

Yes, but does he fall within the cap outlined in the OP? That's what I'm wondering: if heroes of that capability will show up at all, because I am not particularly familiar with the DCAU so the reference given in the OP doesn't mean much for me.

I'm assuming that if the Green Lanterns enter the equation, the whole Corps does, as they are present in the DCAU. Plus, Maijin Gojira apparently considers Godzilla to be a superhero.

I also didn't read that as a cap on how powerful the characters are in general, rather that Majin Gojira interprets Superman's depiction in the DCAU as perhaps his "best" adaptation. Which is subjective, of course, but he probably just doesn't want to bring Superman Prime 1,000,000 into this discussion because he's fucking ridiculous and not well known outside of comic book VS debates, where he is the ultimate wank character that gets brought up to quash Super Sayan God Goku.

But if that was meant to be read as a "cap" on superhuman power, its not a very meaningful one. First of all, it could be read as allowing reality warping characters to be arbitrarily powerful. Fortunately there aren't many, but arguably many characters who wield magic count. Also, arguably The Flash is more powerful than Superman in the DCAU. But finally, Superman in the DCAU is pretty damn powerful as well. Most people will probably point you to the famous "World of Cardboard" moment as his most famous showing of power, but personally I think his fight with Shazam in an earlier season was more destructive by a mile and featured what I think was his actual strongest punch in the series. Between Shazam and Superman, I think more buildings were destroyed in that one scene than the entirety of Superman's standalone show. And in that case, Superman was pissed off, so he unleashed all that power without thinking, as opposed to trying to do it on purpose. If he had been thinking about it, he would have listened to Shazam and never let the fight happen like that.

Basically, you have to go into the actual comics universes to find characters who can destroy planets because they rarely make it into adaptations because they are usually pure wank. Mogo is the only exception, because as GL characters go he's just plain cool, and people can accept that much power in a single character when they are a friggen planet. You don't call in Mogo to stop the Joker on a Tuesday, which is the usual problem with having Batman and Superman 1,000,000 in the same universe. Superman 1,000,000 makes every other characters irrelevant by his mere existence.

However, plenty of characters have the power to destroy cities on a whim. Superman, most Superman clones, Nanoha Takimachi at any age, the Hulk, the Power Rangers and their giant mechs, and probably Zatanna. And probably a few more have "city leveling' levels of power I'm just not remembering off the top of my head. Oh, right! Jean Gray.