Consistently Underestimated super-characters

[TeChameleon]

Was idly thinking about the various superheroes, and it occurs to me that there are some that often seem to be heavily underestimated, by fans, by others in-universe, and even by the authors sometimes, being written well below their best showings.

To kick things off, a character or two that people seem to forget just how powerful they are (can be?)

Banshee:
Sean Cassidy has the power of... well, yelling really loud. Not that impressive, at least until you watch him basically cap a friggin' volcano with it- against an energy that the narration described as 'infinite'. Moses Magnum (the baddy in the scan) was trying to unleash an earthquake to sink Japan. So Banshee is at least powerful enough to blow Japan off the map, given that he was countering the force exactly (albeit blowing out his vocal cords temporarily).

Vision:
The Synthezoid Avenger tends to be disregarded a surprising number of times. I'm not sure why, but people tend to forget that he was designed to solo the Avengers, and even if he was sort of toned-down when he joined them, he was still evenly matched with Thor, who nobody's going to mistake for a wuss. Bit weird, but there you have it.

[Rater202]

Banshee is also categorically immune to sound.

He can't be deafened by hearing something too loud, his body can't be shaken apart by vibrations, he won't suffer negative psychological effects from Idoping. Sonic weapons have no effect on him, he can't be hurt by sound.

Unless you count losing his voice from talking too much.

The same applies to his daughter, Syren.. Who is also the current host of the Mantle of the Morrigan, giving her the powers and physiology of one of the Tuatha Du Dannan on top of her mutant abilities.

Cyclops is another Marvel Hero who is often underestimated: You have to rmemer that he canoncially has a natural aptotide as a leader... And that while he can't turn his optic blasts off, he does have a limited ability to control how wide or narow they're focused and how much power he outputs. The visor just helps beyond what he can do alone.

If Scott takes his visor off and opens his eyes as wide as he goes, he can basically level an area of several city blocks. If he focuses his unfiltered blast down to only affect one person, that person will be reduced to their competent atoms.

Cyclops can literally and utterly destroy you by tarring at you for a few seconds.

Unlike most mutants, who draw the energy needed to maintain their powers from extradimensional sources, Cyclops's body manufactures most of all of this "mutant energy" by absorbing trace amounts of heat and UV rays from sunlight as it makes contact with his body. Scott's body does not absorb enough solar energy to noticeably affect the ambient light and temperature around him, even to those with superhuman senses, but what little energy he does take in is metabolized at well over 100,000,000% efficiency: Not only is none of it wasted, but by the time it's been converted to mutant energy Scott has millions of times more than he started with.

Mister Sinister, who is obsessed with Scott's bloodline and did extensive research on Scott's biology and genetics, has concluded that Scott's very existence singlehanded disproves the laws of thermodynamics, and a major part of Sinister's experiments has been replicating Scott's energy efficiency in combination with other mutant powers.

Scott can also absorb his own optic blasts(which comes from portals in his eyes and are not his own energy) and the plasmablasts generated by his brother Alex, who has similar but less efficient powers, which subject them to the same process as sunlight. Alex can do the same with his own plasma and optic blasts, meaning that they could theoretically just keep blasting each other to create a perpetual energy circuit.

HE can also absorb electricity to fuel his powers, but unlike sunlight and his and his brother's blasts, he has to actively do so, and channeling it into his body is painful. Once, after absorbing a blast of lightning given to him by storm, his powers were temporarily magnified to the point that the red kinetic photons that compose his optic blasts turned white from absorbing extra energy in his system.

[TeChameleon]

There's also the odd, slightly amusing fact that Cyclops literally has super-geometry powers (and he might be the character that seems the most apropos for, too).

And the fact that Cyclops seems to have the ability to channel functionally infinite energy through his eyes- he actually blew the hand clean off the Celestial Judge, Arishem, with the help of the O.G. Phoenix (while it thought it was Jean Grey) channelling an entire planet's worth of... 'mutant energy'(?).. through him.

Then again, a lot of X-Men have the most oddball, random extra powers that even the writers forget about half the time- Nightcrawler alone has an entire stack of random, apparently unrelated abilities, although 'darkforce dimension' seems to be the usual excuse (lesse... perfect darkvision, invisibility in shadows, superhumanly flexible spine, wall-crawling, occasionally-superhuman agility (I'm not sure there's ever been a full consensus as to whether his agility is peak [comic book] human or actually super), glowing eyes, permanently-shadowed face, and of course his teleportation. Not sure if I've even gotten them all), Angel has his hollow bones, super-vision, limited superstrength and healing blood, Colossus occasionally changes size when armouring up (varies between writers/artists) and sometimes doesn't have internal organs or bones while in his metal form and sometimes does, Dazzler can literally absorb infinite (sound?) energy, which was hilarious when Galactus made her his temporary herald not by giving her the Power Cosmic, but by exposing her to 'cosmic noise' (and even funnier when she accidentally ate Klaw, the living sound-being).

[Razade]

If manga characters count. The so called Weak Trio from The Strawhats in One Piece.

Nami, aside from being heralded as one of the greatest navigators in a setting all about sailing thanks in part at least to her ability to predict weather events that would destroy other boats, also is a weather user on land. She has a powerful weapon that can create weather effects such as mirages, thunderstorms and tornadoes. She single handedly protected Luffy from one of the top four members of one of the largest and most powerful Pirate crews in the setting until he could fight again and in the current arc took down one of the top 9 of one of the other largest and most powerful Pirate crews just with her lightning power. She's cowardly and would rather leave it to the others but she's taken down a number of fairly strong characters just with her brains and talents.

Usopp on the other hand is an amazing sniper. His cowardly nature in the start has made him quite powerful and he's even developed some of the supernatural powers other top tier folks have which only makes him better at sniping. His bullets are some wild stuff too from massive explosions to plants that can grow and do all sorts of strange effects.

Chopper, the Doctor, can transform into various utility forms and in while he most often is on the sidelines making sure everyone is bandaged up or just kinda cheering since he's a smolboy, along with Nami he's taken on some big names including going toe to toe with the second in command of one of the aforementioned strongest pirate crews and he fought Big Mom, one of the Captains of said pirate crews, toe to toe while she tried to sink her ship for a short time.

[Rynjin]

Unlike most mutants, who draw the energy needed to maintain their powers from extradimensional sources, Cyclops's body manufactures most of all of this "mutant energy" by absorbing trace amounts of heat and UV rays from sunlight as it makes contact with his body. Scott's body does not absorb enough solar energy to noticeably affect the ambient light and temperature around him, even to those with superhuman senses, but what little energy he does take in is metabolized at well over 100,000,000% efficiency: Not only is none of it wasted, but by the time it's been converted to mutant energy Scott has millions of times more than he started with.

Did they change the "opens a portal to the punch dimension" explanation?

If manga characters count. The so called Weak Trio from The Strawhats in One Piece.

On the flipside, Sanji, widely considered as a member of the "Monster Trio" of Luffy/Zoro/Sanji is...kinda worthless. I've been rewatching One Piece while I work and he kinda just loses almost every fight he's in or never participates at all up to Water 7.

While we're tickling low-hanging manga fruit, the human characters of Dragon Ball are consistently underestimated when taken out of the context of their setting. They job hard in series but are still orders of magnitude more powerful than the average fictional character. Master Roshi blew up the moon in a single shot back in Dragon Ball, and the widely considered "joke" of a character, Krillin, is literally tens of thousands of times more powerful than that. (He's also not a coward, as many people seem to remember him as for some reason, but that's anotehr discussion.)

Even in the context of the setting, up to and INCLUDING at least Frieza and maybe even Imperfect/Semi-Perfect Cell, Krillin actually had the ability to kill each of the villains with a Destructo Disc/Kienzan. His control over teh fine manipulation of ki is orders of magnitudes better than most of the characters in the series, including Goku, and it allows him to punch above his weight class considerably.

Re: comic books, people underestimate Iron Fist quite a bit. Even if we ignore Living Weapon (which...man I wish I could forget it existed), which has one of his better feats (punching the leg clean off a creature that dwarfs skyscrapers), early comics likened a full power punch from the Iron Fist as equivalent to an atomic bomb, minus the fallout; he destroyed an entire town with a single punch, leaving nothing but blasted wreckage in his wake.

Over the course of the character's lifespan he's also grown more powerful, being able to unleash MULTIPLE such punches per day, and theoretically could unleash a singular super-turbo-punch using all of his stored ki that dwarfs even that atomic explosion comparison.

He's also low-mid superhuman in a lot of areas (strength, speed, endurance, etc.) well beyond what one might consider "peak human" in comic books, though a lot of people seem to have the idea that he's similar to Captain America in terms of "stats". Maybe because he was in earlier runs, but he got a huge boost in Immortal Iron Fist that never went away.

[Mastikator]

Since we're now Officially™ counting anime character I'll add Saitama from One Punch Man to the list. I know it's parody but it's also really good and says interesting things at times and deals with real issues (loneliness, depression, boredom, bullying, alienation, obsession, climate change, disenfranchisement, corruption, capitalism, hope, faith, selflessness etc).

[Rater202]

Did they change the "opens a portal to the punch dimension" explanation?

No.

This is how he powers the portal.

To give a crash course: Most superhumans powers that are legitimately superhuman by drawing from extradimensional energy sources collectively called "The God Source."

Doctor Doom attempts to assign a universal name to superhuman energy, the Van Doom Particle, but it's heavily implied that he's dead wrong.

Mutants draw energy that is, uncreatively, called "Mutant Energy." This energy is very similar to the Cosmic Power of the Celestials(and, it should be noted, that mutants tend to get the biggest boosts when powered up by Celestial Power) but it's also noted that Mutants naturally store magical energy in their bones. The exact mechanics of how they draw it in, but the "X-Gene," in addition to coding for a protein that activates and deactivates other genes in the body to create a unique Gene-Complex responsible for the mutants power, seems to serve as an anchor.

Cyclops, however... Doesn't draw his mutant energy from extradimensional sources. Or at least, not all of it.

By sheer fluke, he and his younger brothers have genes that, when incorporated into their X-Gene complexes allow them to absorb one kind of energy and amplify it hundreds of millions of times over to generate most is not all of their own superhuman energy.

Scott then uses this to open portals to the punch dimension.

His children, however, Nate, Nate, and Rachel use it to magnify their psychic powers from their mothers many times over, granting them things like the power to see the past and future, travel through and manipulate time, possess literally all forms of Psychokinesis scaling from the planetary to the atomic, and even limited ability to warp reality.

X-Man/Nate Grey, the version of Scott's son from the age of Acpaolcypse who eventually migrated to the main universe, after having been dead for a while... Brought himself back to life becuase being dead was boring.

This applies to other superhumans as well: Spider-Man has the rare "insect" gene that, while purely vestigial in a biological sense, makes him susceptible to certain mystical energies associated with insects, arachnids, and so forth. When he was bitten by the radioactive Spider, he not only underwent genetic mutation but began drawing in energy from The Great Web of Life and Destiny, which guided those mutations and provides the energy to compensate for powers beyond what he should physically be capable of.

The specific radiation signature of his radioactive blood plays a part in conducting his superhuman energy: neutralize the radiation and his powers will go on the fritz until he can replenish it.

The Hulk is dawing energy emanating off of Cosmic Mega Satan through a metaphysical portal between his psyche and Super-Hell, which then manifests as a mysterious Third Form of Gamma Radiation that is neither a ray nor a particle. This same portal means that the Hulk can never permenantly die, as he'll just go to Super Hell and then waltz right back through "The Green Door" to come back to life.

---

Ayway, back on topic: Since anime characters have bene brought up: Yamcha, from Dragonball.

Everybody laughs at him for dying to a Saibaman.

Everybody forgets that Yamcha beat that Saiba to death in a total curb stomp and only died becuase it used the last of its strength to hit him with a suicidal sucker punch when he'd let his guard down. IT was dying so it decided "screw it" and blew itself up hoping to take Yamcha with it.

For context: The average Saibaman has the same power level as Raditz, the guy who was thoroughly kicking Goku and Piclo's collective ass less than a year ago and only lost because Goku sacrificed himself to give Piccolo a clean shot with an assassination move.

Nappa eventually explicitly says that these Saibamen are stronger than average, and speculates that there's something about the soil in the area that was good for their growth.

Ergo, these Saibamen were stronger than Raditz, to an unknown degree.

For comparison, Yamcha the last time he'd been seen in a fight was no match for a much weaker Piccolo.

Yeah, Yamcha's the weakest of the main fighters. He's still unimaginably powerful.

[TeChameleon]

As a further random aside, since the Summers children were brought up, Rachel also has a power that even the writers forget most of the time- her actual, non-inherited mutant ability is generating a fourth-dimensional pulse that allows psychic time-travel, or actual time-travel when boosted with an outside source like the Phoenix Force.

Another oddball case from superhero comics is Monica Rambeau (aka Captain Marvel, Pulsar, Photon, Monica Marvel, Daystar, Sceptre, Lady of Light, Spectrum, and Sun Goddess. She hasn't had a lot of luck with codenames ). The writers don't tend to forget her power levels, and in-universe she garners at least a little respect, but readers tend to disregard her, despite the fact that she used her energy powers to badly hurt Zeus, the freaking god of lightning with a lightning strike. That's a bit like drowning Aquaman. She's also a casual planet buster, which isn't as common as you might think in the Marvel Universe.

And with Iron Fist, his level of super-ness tends to fluctuate a bit. He can be an almost dismissively casual bullet-timer, effortlessly dodging or catching massed automatic weapons fire, but he can also be inconvenienced by a lone goon with a revolver, so, uhm... sure?

Somebody who gets almost no respect from readers would be Hank Pym (Ant-Man, Giant-Man, Goliath, Yellowjacket, Wasp... I think that's all of them?), who, despite everything, is one of the greatest scientific minds of the Marvel Universe- even gaining the title of 'Scientist Supreme' from (maybe) Eternity, although that could have just been Loki screwing with him. He's also got a remarkable arsenal when he actually bothers to use it even moderately creatively (Godzilla, at six feet tall courtesy of Pym particles, wearing a trench coat and fedora was a wonderful thing).

[Cicciograna]

While we're tickling low-hanging manga fruit, the human characters of Dragon Ball are consistently underestimated when taken out of the context of their setting. They job hard in series but are still orders of magnitude more powerful than the average fictional character. Master Roshi blew up the moon in a single shot back in Dragon Ball, and the widely considered "joke" of a character, Krillin, is literally tens of thousands of times more powerful than that. (He's also not a coward, as many people seem to remember him as for some reason, but that's anotehr discussion.)

Even in the context of the setting, up to and INCLUDING at least Frieza and maybe even Imperfect/Semi-Perfect Cell, Krillin actually had the ability to kill each of the villains with a Destructo Disc/Kienzan. His control over teh fine manipulation of ki is orders of magnitudes better than most of the characters in the series, including Goku, and it allows him to punch above his weight class considerably.

The Humans are my favorite group in Dragon Ball. The fact that they are not uberpowerful tanks that can withstand the onslaught of demigods means that they need to be way more cautious and smart in their fight. Krillin and Tenshinan, and even Yamcha up to a point, are constantly in the shadow of Goku, Vegeta and Gohan, but they are absolutely valuable additions to the team. Not to mention Bulma, who is often absolutely crucial to win certain battles, like against the cyborgs.

Going back to the topic of teh thread, I feel we don't see enough of Martian Manhunter in current media. He is just broken, some would say that he can rival Superman in more than one field, yet the character is still somewhat obscure, or at least he doesn't share the same amount of spotlight as Supes, the Bat, Wonder Woman or others.
Sorry, misinterpreted the premise of the thread. Underestimated in general, not by media.

[Taevyr]

For comic characters: Plastic Man. Morrison made a point of it in his JLA run that it's mainly his goofy personality holding him back, as he's terrifying when he gets serious: his stretching ability is functional shapeshifting, due to him "having complete control over his molecular structure". Functionally, this means he can shapeshift without any constraints in size or form, and he once commented the hardest part of imitating a person is properly stretching vocal cords to imitate their voice. He's got some degree of superhuman agility and can add muscle to gain superhuman strength (to a degree) as well. The only drawback is that he tends to keep the colours of his outfit/body, but whenever he needs to get serious he can change even that with a bit of effort. He can pretend to be anyone and anything, and is brilliant at it when his goofiness doesn't get in the way. And he doesnt even need to imitate people or things to stay beneath notice: he's infiltrated areas or meetings by simply hiding inside someone and waiting.

Additionally, he's essentially indestructible: Batman's secret plan to defeat him in Tower of Babel involved deep-freezing and shattering him as nothing else would work. When Ra's al Ghul did exactly that, he was perfectly fine after the Flash puzzled him back together aside from the emotional trauma. Heat melts him, but even then he can still slither around and eventually returns to normal. During a JLA adventure that involved travelling to Atlantis 3000 years in the past, he was ripped to crumbs and scattered across the atlantic ocean: the league returned to the present thinking he was dead, while he managed to pull himself together a few days after they returned, having spent the past 3000 years doing so.

Also, he's immune to mind control due to his brain not being organic anymore, and functionally immortal due to the rest of him not being organic either.

As for mundane abilities: he was a quite capable professional thief before he gained his powers, and regularly mentions that he essentially still has the mindset of a criminal and a thief: in Injustice, he single-handedly broke out every superhero and -villain locked up in the Regime's prison at the bottom of the Mariana Trench by knocking out the flash by "infiltrating his windpipe", pretending to be the Flash in a meeting with Cyborg to "discuss potential points of entry for Plastic-man" and thus being told by Cy where he could access the prison, and then infiltrating the place. When the dome was pierced by Sinestro, he sealed it with himself and still got away once everyone else had left.

[Rynjin]

And with Iron Fist, his level of super-ness tends to fluctuate a bit. He can be an almost dismissively casual bullet-timer, effortlessly dodging or catching massed automatic weapons fire, but he can also be inconvenienced by a lone goon with a revolver, so, uhm... sure?

I can't think of a single time post-Immortal Iron Fist that he was even vaguely inconvenienced by a non-supernatural threat. That series really codified snd locked down his powers just kinda being as strong or weak as needed for a given plot.

Mind you I only read the comics where he's a main character or key part of an ensemble (eg. New Avengers) so if he's jobbed to some no-name schmuck in an issue of Spider-man or something I haven't seen it.

[Rater202]

Regarding Krilllin: In the Manga, he never actually used the Kienzan against cell. The anime added a scene of Cell shrugging off a Kienzan to the neck but in the manga that never happened.

According to the supplemental sources, Krillin during the fight against Frieza had a power level somewhere between 13,000 and 75,000 following Grand Elder Guru drawing out a portion of his untapped potential, sources conflict.

We do not have a clocked power level for Frieza's third form, but we know that his first form had a power level of 530,000, his second form of "over one million," and his true form at half power was 60,000,000 and at full power was 120,000,000.

If we assume that there's a scale to how much of his power his transformations lock away...

I want to say that between 10 and 30 million seems a fair estimate for third form Frieza?

So Krillin is still inflicting serious injuries to people potentially well over a hundred times to well over multiple thousands of times his own power.

He wouldn't have been able to kill Perfect Cell but he's have made him bleed.

[Imbalance]

Janet van Dyne, the Winsome Wasp
Founding member of the Avengers, often portrayed as the team's weakest link yet has led them more often than anyone but Cap, fell into the underused character bin in the late 80's until Disassembled, later was turned into a giant bomb by Skrulls. She's barely more than a footnote in the MCU. She spent many a panel in the role of abuse victim and survivor.

Able to shrink, fly really fast, and shoot stingers, or grow hundreds of feet tall with proportional strength boost, and I guess even telepathically control ants, but her most important power seems to be her fashion sense, because it's one of the first or most prominent things mentioned in any bio you can find on her. More subtly, I remember her usually being the one to figure out solutions to problems that have the geniuses in the group stumped.

In Ultimates, she single-handedly took out rampaging Hulk (before he could eat Freddie Prinze Jr.) by zapping him point-blank inside his own brain. My knowledge is incomplete, but I think this is the only time she had ever done anything as effective to end a fight.

In the Zombies offshoot, she is reduced by Hank to an undead head in a jar that Black Panther uses as a weapon. She is eventually granted a robot body, at least.

It seems writers expect little more from her than to be the former Mrs. Pym. Early on she got to be the glue of the Avengers by flirting and being in charge. Despite frequently stepping away from the dangers of the superhero life, she somehow always ends up back with the leadership mantle. She's never really near the top of any fans' lists, yet Marvel saw fit to bring her back from the dead, maybe for purely business reasons. Given her long and illustrious career it would behoove villains to pay more attention to her and would be great if her spotlight would shift away from domestic drama for a change.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Am I allowed to gripe about Sleeper? Sure he’s a symbiote with all the relevant powers, but his self-specific chemokinesis would be wildly useful if they ever gave the little guy any screen time. Knock out gas? Undetectable poison? Any and every chemical-based medicine in existence? The super soldier serum? And they have him stuck being Eddie’s secretary answering phone calls.

[Rater202]

Am I allowed to gripe about Sleeper? Sure he’s a symbiote with all the relevant powers, but his self-specific chemokinesis would be wildly useful if they ever gave the little guy any screen time. Knock out gas? Undetectable poison? Any and every chemical-based medicine in existence? The super soldier serum? And they have him stuck being Eddie’s secretary answering phone calls.

He can only generate chemicals that are liquid or gaseous at room temperature.

He cannot generate viruses nor radiation.

Thus, he cannot recreate the super-soldier serum, as the super-soldier serum's ingredients include retroviral treatments and radiation exposure.

He likewise probably can't recreate complicated chemical structures like, say, enzymes.

He could, however, theoretically recreate other super serums that do not have such components.

Though considering that Sleeper is the one choosing to do that, it's probably less that he's underestimated and more that he just doesn't give a crap.

I think he takes the form of a house cat for a reason.

[The Glyphstone]

Aquaman comes to mind personally. He's such a joke media wise even non comic fans think of him as The Guy Who Talks To Fish.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

He can only generate chemicals that are liquid or gaseous at room temperature.

He cannot generate viruses nor radiation.

Thus, he cannot recreate the super-soldier serum, as the super-soldier serum's ingredients include retroviral treatments and radiation exposure.

So, ‘only’ the portion that has only been successfully duplicated a tiny handful of times, and with an easy hook to tie in other characters if the hypothetical comic author wanted to.

He likewise probably can't recreate complicated chemical structures like, say, enzymes.

Given that his primary form of communication was tweaking brain chemistry with enough precision to form meaningful sentences from across the room - not bonded to a host - I’m going to object to this.

Though considering that Sleeper is the one choosing to do that, it's probably less that he's underestimated and more that he just doesn't give a crap.

I think he takes the form of a house cat for a reason.

I’m…curious how you arrived at this interpretation? He came halfway across the galaxy to help fight off the Klyntar’s evil creator god, and saved the human race from a super plague.

[Rater202]

I’m…curious how you arrived at this interpretation? He came halfway across the galaxy to help fight off the Klyntar’s evil creator god, and saved the human race from a super plague.

You might have noticed that Sleeper kind of vanished after Venom Island and was storngly offput when Dylan was temporarily taken over by Knull in Web of Venom: The Good Son.

And was not seen again until Venom 200.

He sat out the entirety of King in Black.

It was even lampshaded: When Iron Man goes out to capture a Symbiote to try and save Eddie's life by bonding him to one after Knull separated him from Venom and dropped him from the top of the Empire State Building, Spider-Man flat out asks where Sleeper was and doesn't get an answer.

Sleeper, despite lobotomizing Tel-Kar and using his comatose body to ride around the galaxy, hates the idea of being controlled and despite him telling Dylan off for it Dylan later goes on to do the same with what he believes to be the last remnants of Carnage and then through Carnage controls Venom to fight the actual main body of the Carnage symbiote.

Playing around with Carnage led Dylan to temporarily be taken over by Knull, which among other things briefly made him a sociopathic bully to Normie.

In all likelihood, Sleeper said "**** this, I'm out" and skedaddled as soon as Eddie was back and only came back when Dylan's power over Symbiotes was removed.

[Vahnavoi]

Not underestimated in general, but in their stealth skills: shinobi in Naruto.

Yeah, yeah, the main character wears an orange jumpsuit - least stealthy ninja ever, right?

The joke falls flat when you realize everyone and their mother learns a technique to disguise as anyone or anything and even the main character has used it in mid combat to fool enemies by turning into rocks and weapons. Sometimes in tandem with a highly visible clone of his to distract an opponent.

Their walk around clothes really don't matter.

[Rater202]

Not underestimated in general, but in their stealth skills: shinobi in Naruto.

Yeah, yeah, the main character wears an orange jumpsuit - least stealthy ninja ever, right?

The joke falls flat when you realize everyone and their mother learns a technique to disguise as anyone or anything and even the main character has used it in mid combat to fool enemies by turning into rocks and weapons. Sometimes in tandem with a highly visible clone of his to distract an opponent.

Their walk around clothes really don't matter.

Let's be completly honest, you can't even prove they're wearing cloths

Any given ninja could just be walking around naked but transformed into themselves but wearing clothes.

Naruto turned into a Goddamn Fuma shuriken once, and Tsunade's hole gimmick beyond being the codifier of a ninja medic is that she uses the transformation technique 24/7 to transform into herself but younger... Until being healed by Karin made her actually younger.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

You might have noticed that Sleeper kind of vanished after Venom Island and was storngly offput when Dylan was temporarily taken over by Knull in Web of Venom: The Good Son.

And was not seen again until Venom 200.

He sat out the entirety of King in Black.

Yes, this is why I’m griping.

It was even lampshaded: When Iron Man goes out to capture a Symbiote to try and save Eddie's life by bonding him to one after Knull separated him from Venom and dropped him from the top of the Empire State Building, Spider-Man flat out asks where Sleeper was and doesn't get an answer.

IIRC his exact words were ‘isn’t your cat a symbiote’ and they just wanted the ‘more powerful’ dragon symbiote to fix Eddie. They weren’t being very sensible in general for that bit (I’m still annoyed at Reed Richards for wanting to throw a twelve year old at an evil alien god, symbiote powers or no) but they don’t actually give any indication that Sleeper is not present or available.

Sleeper, despite lobotomizing Tel-Kar and using his comatose body to ride around the galaxy, hates the idea of being controlled and despite him telling Dylan off for it Dylan later goes on to do the same with what he believes to be the last remnants of Carnage and then through Carnage controls Venom to fight the actual main body of the Carnage symbiote.

Playing around with Carnage led Dylan to temporarily be taken over by Knull, which among other things briefly made him a sociopathic bully to Normie.

My understanding is that this happened the other way around, which would have made the logical point to bail out be before Venom Island, which he didn’t do because he was around for that. Additionally, if he had bailed - why come back at all? Why did no one call him out for disappearing if that’s what he did? They don’t because he didn’t: the author(s) just wanted to do their death-and-resurrection plotline, which would have been difficult to do if Eddie hadn’t died, ergo Sleeper wasn’t brought in to save him.

And while I’ll agree Sleeper hates being controlled, he was loyal enough to stick around and protect Dylan despite enduring actual physical pain just from touching the kid. If anything, he seems to have inherited the Venom symbiote’s tendency to pine after a host he’s never going to get.

[Psyren]

Definitely Ant-Man. Used to its potential, Pym's technology can easily reach S-Tier power levels, as we saw in the latest What If. But the man himself is routinely treated as comic relief even by the other characters in his universe.

[Wintermoot]

If you've ever seen Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes, the very good three season animated series that preceded most of the marvel MCU, then you'll understand this.

In that series, you have the "powerhouses" of Thor, Hulk, Giant Man, Iron Man, Captain America, etc.

However by FAR the most competent members of the team are Hawkeye, the Wasp and the Black Panther.

Seriously, Hawkeye and the Wasp show up everyone else by getting stuff done. It's awesome.

[GloatingSwine]

If you've ever seen Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes, the very good three season animated series that preceded most of the marvel MCU, then you'll understand this.

In that series, you have the "powerhouses" of Thor, Hulk, Giant Man, Iron Man, Captain America, etc.

However by FAR the most competent members of the team are Hawkeye, the Wasp and the Hulk.

Seriously, Hawkeye and the Wasp show up everyone else by getting stuff done. It's awesome.

At least 50% of episodes especially in the first season were "everyone has an ineffectual punchup then either Hawkeye or Black Panther solves the actual problem".

I suspect there was probably a mandate to have every character in every episode* (To Sell Toys) so they had to have everyone do something, which for most of them meant a lot of ineffectual punching.

On the flipside, Sanji, widely considered as a member of the "Monster Trio" of Luffy/Zoro/Sanji is...kinda worthless. I've been rewatching One Piece while I work and he kinda just loses almost every fight he's in or never participates at all up to Water 7.

He's spent most of the new world not contributing much either.

Another character who is consistently presented as not as effective as she should be is Momo Yaoyozuru from My Hero Academia. As someone who can produce any non-organic matter or object, including up to several times her own body mass and including complex electronics, at will, she should be way more capable than she usually is. She mostly jobs for the sake of others but she should be capable of so much more. She should be able to produce any weapon she needs to fight at any range, or the counter to anyone she has reasonable foreknowledge of, and she's presented as being one of the smartest characters in the main group. She just never actually does.


* The funniest story for this was Beast Wars, where they got the mandate after they'd done all the character design work and given Waspinator a super annoying vocal style, so they limited the number of lines he had by blowing him up every episode. Universe really did hate Waspinator.

[Wraith]

One of my favourite, and oft-overlooked, superheroes is Captain Atom.

You know - that guy with nigh-impenetrable alien-metal skin, who can fly, and is super-strong, and can consume any kind of energy and fire it back out as any other kind of energy that he choose. Y'know, subtle and underestimated.

That all being said: He's a flying brick with "lazer-eyes" who shares not just a universe, or just a country, but also an office with Superman, the brickest of all flying bricks who can only be defeated by one or two kinds of super special energy... Which he occasionally just ignores for long enough to get rid of it, including beating the night-impenetrable snot out of Captain Atom to do so. As far as top-tier DC superheroes go, his powers are barely in the middle of the pack behind guys like Blue Beetle III, Firestorm, the Green Lantern Corp and a guy with PTSD who is dressed in a bat costume.

And yet, the highlights of his stories are typically a lot better than you would expect from a Justice League C-Lister. The ending to Batman/Superman: Public Enemy showed him to have morals and integrity equal to Captain America at his best, and in it's successor series Captain Atom: Armageddon he gets teleported to the Wildstorm universe and has to fight their array of psychotic anti-heroes like Majestic and the Authority. This one is particularly enjoyable - Captain Atom reveals that he knows he is second-string compared to Superman, the Flash, etc, but because he's aware of his deficiencies he works around them and uses his powers in suprisingly mundane but still impressive ways. He's one of those heroes who is clearly flawed, but is aware of his flaws and does his best to overcome - it's easy to be a hero when you're perfect, after all.

C.A.: Armagaddon also gives one of my most favourite quotes out of comics, which is one of the most foreboding and dangerous threats made by a hero: "My name is Captain Atom. As in 'A-bomb'... As in 'nuclear fission'... As in... 'The end of the world'!".

Also, Catman. The Secret Six series written by Gail Simone made him a truly formidable character, on one occasion effortlessly fighting Batman to a stand-still, however in-universe this was a fairly recent phenomenon. After getting the **** beaten out of him one too many times by Green Arrow, Catman realised how much of a loser he had become and exiled himself to live feral in Africa with a pride of lions - either he would die, or reinvent himself as one of the most fearsome and deadly martial artists/trackers/survivalists in the world. He achieved the latter, but many people didn't realise it until after they had said the wrong thing, or drawn his attention for all the wrong reasons.

Gail Simone's Catman is an excellent character and the sudden end of the series upon the advent of New 52 was one of my biggest disappointments in comics.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Hmm, I'm going to count Mercy Thompson (of the Mercy Thompson series). Her powers are nothing to write home about (in a setting where just about every supernatural being has super-strength, regeneration, and magical powers on top of that, she can... turn into an ordinary coyote), but she consistently comes out on top because she is smart and very good at understanding what makes people (including monsters) tick. It also helps that not many people in-setting know she's not just a normal human.

My favorite example is from Silence Fallen (book 10), where

Spoiler: Spoilers for the inciting incident and first challenge after that

Show

Mercy has been captured by essentially the king of vampires in Europe. Hit by a truck as part of a smash & grab (they assumed she was a werewolf and so used way more force than was necessary or even safe), hauled across the ocean to a country where she doesn't speak the language, and locked in a cellar at the vampire's mansion with a werewolf outside under orders to kill her if she leaves. 15 minutes max after waking up, she was out of there, and once she had run all the way to the nearest city she lured the werewolf (who had been on her heels the whole time) into getting hit by a bus.

There was also the time where a werewolf was abusing the rules of formal challenges. Mercy wasn't a werewolf; she didn't have a voice in the proceedings, so what was she going to do about it? Turns out, draw a gun and shoot him through the throat before he could finish challenging her friend. Lead bullets, so it wasn't murder or even a long-term injury, and the challenge hadn't started yet so it wasn't interference.

[Spacewolf]

On the flipside, Sanji, widely considered as a member of the "Monster Trio" of Luffy/Zoro/Sanji is...kinda worthless. I've been rewatching One Piece while I work and he kinda just loses almost every fight he's in or never participates at all up to Water 7.

Really? He beats his opponent in the Arlong arc, saves everyones lives on little garden by getting the log pose and also saves them from Crocodile at the same time. Wins against Mr2 on Alabasta and once again saves everyone from the cage after coming up with a plan to distract Crocodile. Doesn't do much in Sky island but has some cool scenes.

Then we get to water 7/ennis lobby where he's probably the most important character in terms of everything working out well. After that he goes back to basically just fighting his designated opponent until after the time skip where he has a story arc around him.

Honestly rereading one piece recently I actually found his actions some of the most interesting since he has such a big impact just by actually paying attention to what's going on and having his own plans running in the background.

I'll second Vision though he is criminally under used at the moment. I hope he gets a what if episode.

[Rodin]

Mineta from My Hero Academia.

He's very much a joke character - short, cowardly, and the class pervert. He's basically just there to be the butt of jokes, usually the girls beating him up for perving on them. Even his Quirk is a joke, being just about the weakest perk in the main class. When he demonstrates his quirk (pulling purple balls off his head that are super adhesive) Asui asks in shock why he's trying to be a Hero with the Quirk and personality that he has.

...Except he also has a better track record than many of the students in his class. His Quirk was instrumental to Midoriya's group beating the villains in the first season, he lands a hit on Midoriya's team with one of his purple balls during the cavalry battle, and during the end of year exams he was the only student to beat a teacher in 1v1 combat. His Quirk is weak individually but it's a great combo weapon and he's quite inventive with how he uses it.

Little dude doesn't get enough credit when he's keeping up with supers who are both in better shape physically and have better superpowers than he does.

[Rynjin]

Regarding Krilllin: In the Manga, he never actually used the Kienzan against cell. The anime added a scene of Cell shrugging off a Kienzan to the neck but in the manga that never happened.

Oh yeah, I always forget this. Mostly because the Dragon Ball filler scenes usually make the humans look COOLER, not weaker (like Yamcha actually puts up a really good fight against Tien in the anime, but just gets his ass handed to him in the manga).

Really? He beats his opponent in the Arlong arc, saves everyones lives on little garden by getting the log pose and also saves them from Crocodile at the same time. Wins against Mr2 on Alabasta and once again saves everyone from the cage after coming up with a plan to distract Crocodile. Doesn't do much in Sky island but has some cool scenes.

Yeah, he beats a few jobbers in Arlong Park, completely ****s off from the plot for much of Little Garden (almost leading to everyone getting killed by Mr. 3), and then happens to do some good work by pure accident, has his first legitimate fight win against Mr. 2, and then spends most of Skypiea talking **** and getting hit.

Meanwhile, poor, weak, useless Usopp...is da real MVP of a lot of scenes in most arcs. While Sanji is busy getting his **** rekt by Eneru, for instance, he saves Nami and then turns right back around and stops Sanji from being taken from crispy to extra crispy.

Sonny Strait has a habit of voicing characters a lot of the audience thinks are useless, but without whom a lot of people would be dead, come to think of it. A ****load of people would've died on Namek without Krillin's interference as well.

[Razade]

D
On the flipside, Sanji, widely considered as a member of the "Monster Trio" of Luffy/Zoro/Sanji is...kinda worthless. I've been rewatching One Piece while I work and he kinda just loses almost every fight he's in or never participates at all up to Water 7.

I don't know what the anime does, I don't watch it so I can't weigh in on any non-canon filler but Sanji totally fits in the Monster Trio (and it's not even a fan thing. He's denoted as such in the series). His strength isn't just brute strength, he's got a tactical mind and he's sort of the pinch hitter. His roll isn't front line combat, it's jumping in or being a spoiler. A few examples

- Finding out about Crocodile and Baroque Works and leading them to believe that the Straw Hats were dead which let them move without more attacks until Alabasta. Also taking out the Unluckies who were spying on them. Without the team ever knowing

- Breaking The Ark and proving a distraction against Enel until Luffy could arrive. Losing to a Logia (and one that Oda has said is one of the three OP Devil Fruits) without Haki isn't really a mark out of his favor. Everyone but Luffy lost to Enel.

-He shut the Gates of Justice during Enis Lobby which kept the crew safe from the Buster Call

And he's fought plenty of powerful foes and won. I actually can't think of a major fight he's lost. I don't really count Enel. He fought Pearl to a stand still, he beat Gin in his opening arc. He beat one of Arlong's top guys, Kuroobi, took out Mr. 2 of Baroque Works, beat Satori in Sky Island, duo-beat the Davy Back Fight with Zoro and that's all the major fights he's had up to Water 7.