Karen: A lot of us comic geeks enjoy talking about super-hero power levels, and when Marvel came out with their Official Handbooks of the Marvel Universe, with actual statistics provided, it became similar to baseball fans comparing favorite players by the numbers. Instead of batting average and RBI, we could compare how many tons someone could lift or their level of invulnerability.
Recently my nephew sent me this link, from the Marvel wiki, which lists a vast number of Marvel characters and their strength levels. I spent some time poring over it, and I have to say I was struck by a couple of things:
1. A large number of characters have had their strength upped since they first began recording these things. I recall Colossus was originally rated at 70 tons; now he is ranked as potentially over 100 tons. The Thing, once 85 tons, is also in that class. Others who have gone up notably: Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, Iron Man, Sub-Mariner, Spider-Man, Luke Cage.
2. There are some really wacky, surprising ratings here. I mean, Woodgod, 50 tons? Seriously? Or Deathlok, 85 tons? This has got to be some later iteration of the character. Or even the Black Widow, 500 pounds? Come on. Yes, she's a great athlete, but 500 pounds is ridiculous. Then again, I think they ret-conned her origin too, so she may be super-human.
Take a look at the Strength scale and come back and let us know what you think about it. Or even more generally, do you like having concrete numbers to put with characters?