DC Genius Hierarchy (science)

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Prep-Man
Does anyone have the balls to put these guys in order? At least in genius/super genius lists. I'll give a list and if I left out anyone, please contribute. No high end cosmics.

Brainiac
Lex Luthor
Ray Palmer
The Chief
Lord Havok
Brainiac 5
Pre-Crisis Captain Comet
TO Morrow
Professor Ivo
Professor Stien
Adam Strange
Professor Haley
Dr. Sivanna
Mr. Mind
Hiro Okamura
Professor Cale
Anarky
Batman
Mr. Terrific
Alexander Luthor
Lobo
RIP Hunter
Gorilla Grodd
The Ultra Humanite
Epoch
Per Degaton
Pre-Crisis Barry Allen
Prometheus
I.Q.
Pre-Crisis Superman
Steel
Calculator
Oracle
Toyman
Ryan Choi
Tedd Kord
Will Magnus
Gizmo
Abra Kadabra
Monsieur Mallah (The Brain)

amnesia
PC superman is obviously the winner here.

Gecko4lif
Alex luthor

everybody else

Colossus-Big C
Braniac 13

Galan007
Not going to mess with ordering the entirety of that, rather long, list. But imo either Brainiac 5 or Rip would be at the top.

Prep-Man
Originally posted by Galan007
Not going to mess with ordering the entirety of that, rather long, list. But imo either Brainiac 5 or Rip would be at the top.

Did I miss anyone important?

Bentley
Batman 1 million.

Q99
That's a... really long list. Maybe break it down into groups first?

Prep-Man
Originally posted by Q99
That's a... really long list. Maybe break it down into groups first?

I'm not too sure who belongs where, though.

-Pr-
Originally posted by Prep-Man
Did I miss anyone important?

Superman. He's not the smartest though.

Prep-Man
Busiek did some interesting things with Superman during his run.

PC Superman beats him, though. He was smarter than all the scientists on earth. Put together.

Prep-Man
I forgot Thinker.

http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/3/31566/818919-thinker_3_large.jpg

Q99
Originally posted by Prep-Man
I'm not too sure who belongs where, though.


Don't worry about that, just give some manageable chunks, which can then be combined later.

-Pr-
Originally posted by Prep-Man
Busiek did some interesting things with Superman during his run.

PC Superman beats him, though. He was smarter than all the scientists on earth. Put together.

Post Crisis Superman is still a genius on the level of Terrific and Batman, though. His fields are just different.

Prep-Man
Ok, here goes.

Top tier (Super genius):Alexander Luthor, RIP Hunter, Brainaic, TO Morrow, Ivo, Ray Palmer, Batman 1M, PC Superman, PC Captain Comet, Ted Kord, Will Magnus, and Dr. Sivanna.

Mid tier or genius: Anarky, Gizmo, Batman, Holt, Toyman, Calculator, Mr. Mind, Chief, Lord Havok, Stien, Haley, Ultra Humanite, IQ, Steel, Gizmo.

Low tier: Cale, Oracle, Adam Strange, Hiro, Grodd, Prometheus, etc...

Unknowns, Epoch, Lord of Time, Abra Kadabra, and Monsieur Mallah.

batdude123
Originally posted by -Pr-
Post Crisis Superman is still a genius on the level of Terrific and Batman

laughing out loud

-Pr-
Originally posted by batdude123
laughing out loud

shrug

amnesia
Originally posted by -Pr-
shrug

I almost agree. But batman>all smile

Omega Vision
Originally posted by -Pr-
Post Crisis Superman is still a genius on the level of Terrific and Batman, though. His fields are just different.
Sports medicine and communications.

Q99
By 'break it into chunks' I meant, like, just give us 10 to rate sequentially.



I gotta say there's a lot in those tiers I don't think works. Holt's smarter than Kord/relatively close to him, and TO Morrow and Magnus are not in the same category as Brainaic.

Prep-Man
In Booster Gold, it was said that Tedd was smarter than Batman.

batdude123
Originally posted by Prep-Man
In Booster Gold, it was said that Tedd was smarter than Batman.

That makes about as much sense as Black Canary being stated to be more skilled than Batman. In other words, none at all.

Ted Kord hasn't done anything to substantiate that claim.

iceman24567
Ted Kords IQ is higher than Bruces

batdude123
Originally posted by iceman24567
Ted Kords IQ is higher than Bruces

Iceman's gayness level is higher than Northstar's.

iceman24567
Originally posted by batdude123
Iceman's gayness level is higher than Northstar's. Shove it batnub sad

batdude123
Originally posted by iceman24567
Shove it batnub sad

It's interesting to note that you tell me to "shove it" after I question Iceman's sexuality.

mmm

It appears Iceman is the appropriate character for you.

iceman24567
Originally posted by batdude123
It's interesting to note that you tell me to "shove it" after I question Iceman's sexuality.

mmm

It appears Iceman is the appropriate character for you. Why don't you come over so we can test that theory?

batdude123
Originally posted by iceman24567
Why don't you come over so we can test that theory?

Sounds kinky.

iceman24567
Originally posted by batdude123
Sounds kinky. laughing By the way i think Batman is smarter than Kord Higher IQ or not erm

batdude123
Originally posted by iceman24567
laughing By the way i think Batman is smarter than Kord

Duh. sneer

Philosophía
Originally posted by iceman24567
i think About time.

iceman24567

Q99
Ted might do more science stuff, like invent the Bug (which has anti-grav!), but Bruce has his own advantages.

I'd say they're in the same general level.

Desaad
Originally posted by Prep-Man
Does anyone have the balls to put these guys in order? At least in genius/super genius lists. I'll give a list and if I left out anyone, please contribute. No high end cosmics.

I'm not going to go through all of these, because to be frank a lot of them are superfluous and don't deserve mention based on their feats or the paucity of their appearances.

In your first tier 'mortal' guys, you're going to have the cosmically smart. Here you'll have Brainiac 1, Brainiac 3 (Lyrl), Brainiac 5, Sardath, Alexander Luthor, and probably T.O. Morrow. You'd also have Superman 1 Million and Batman 1 Million, most likely, if you care to count them. Each of those has done something truly astounding.

Brainiac 3 just created a Solaris-Class stellar supercomputer, Pulsar Stargrave, by collapsing a pulsar. This makes it the most sophisticated super computer in the universe. He's a 12th level intelligence, which puts him on par with Brainiac 5. Now Brainiac 1 just, on the fly, created a device to contain/hold a rampaging Pulsar Stargrave (ie, contain Solaris). He's also demonstrated the ability to shrink cities down, his tech was co opted to create a planet out of nothing, and he easily destroyed a star/sun. Brainiac 5 has created a number of crazy devices, perhaps most impressive being the "Concentrator", which literally absorbs/utilizes/concentrates every joule of energy in the ENTIRE universe into whatever effect the user wants. It's...disturbing. He's got other feats as well, of force fields and coming up with cures for this and that, outsmarting vast artificial intelligences, etc.

Sardath has created the Zeta Beam, which allows instantaneous transportation across the universe. He also invented the Omega Beam, which allows the transfer of VAST amounts of matter into energy, so much so that it was threat to the universe -- had Starbreaker gotten his hands on it, he would have converted all matter in the universe to energy and absorbed it all. Even normal Zeta Beam tech can teleport planets, though, as demonstrated in a recent issue of REBELS.

Alexander Luthor really only just has the one feat, but it's kind of a doozy. He created a device to literally manipulate the multiverse, combining and separating universes at his whim. Insanity.

T.O. Morrow is probably the only normally earth guy who deserves a mention here. He apparently learned to 'unlock the hidden space between dimensions' when he was 14 (ie, dimensional creation), he's created time machines and vast super computers that alter reality via time manipulation. He also turns iPods into death rays and creates synthetic souls (Tomorrow Woman, Red Tornado).

Metron is almost a cut above, but since Alexander Luthor got mentioned, I'll give him a shout out. He's created Boom Tubes and the Worlogog and the Moebius Chair, he helped develop the Mother Box (with Himon), controls Hypertime, etc.


Next would come the really big science guys. I this grouping might be The Chief, Ray Palmer, Prof. Ivo, Will Magnus, Professor Nichols, and maybe Mr. Terrific.

The Chief has invented a time machine, replaced the JLA's abilities with tech approximations, brought Rita back from the dead with just a piece of her skull, created nanobots that could literally do anything, including create a being so powerful that he was throwing his victims through the fourth wall into 'our' reality. And it looks like he's going to discover away to alter his genes so that he becomes Kryptonian.

Ray Palmer cracked the Hourman virus when Superman 1 Million said that only a Solaris class stellar computer could do so, created a time machine, created boom tube like teleportation devices, co created a device that made the user's wish come true, figured out how to neutralize a universe destroying cosmic phenomenon that hadn't ever been discovered, has been described as having a mind like the world's largest harddrive, and created the greatest shrinking technology in comics (in terms of power, range and versatility).

Prof. Ivo created Amazo and Tomorrow Woman, two of the physical most potent androids in comics, especially Amazo. He created a serum that made him immortal, he's created countless powerful androids.

Will Magnus has created a device that creates portals between dimensions/universes, the responsometers of the Metal Men which basically means he created souls out of code, flying cars controled and powered by his thoughts, etc.

Professor Nichols created a time machine and a "Maybe Machine" that predicts the future based up suppositions/questions one asks it, a sort of "What if.."

I wouldn't have put Mr. Terrific on here but for the fact that lately Robinson has been giving him a bit of a push, as he was able to create a device that destroyed all the Black Lanterns in a tri state area -- the only tech feat I know of to have accomplished such a thing -- and he's currently working on a way to defeat the Starheart. He also figured out how to travel through time, and his T-spheres are crazy advanced.

Next level down might be the more 'normal' geniuses, and this one covers a wider range IMHO. At the top of this level, maybe even pushing up into the higher level, you've got Steel and Lex Luthor, and then more in the middle you've got Batman and Gizmo. Steel is the engineer of the group, retrofitting time machines (though not building them from scratch, which is a strike against) and building all kinds of crazy powerful suits and nanotech and what not.

Lex Luthor vacillates (Post-Crisis) between being a business man and being a genius. Many of his greatest 'works' have been attributed to his staff. Lately he's made a bit of a comeback as an evil genius, having combined time pool technology with kryptonian weaponry to change the sun to red and various things like that, but he's not a straight up scientist guy anymore, and I doubt he will be shown to be in the upcoming Action run with Paul Cornell. If you take Pre-Crisis into account you're talking about putting him up at the cosmic level as he's making time machines out of orange juice boxes and tin foil.

RIP is a specialist in time, and pretty much only makes time technology. He's good at what he does, but it's limited inherently, and doesn't deserve to be listed along with all the polymaths above.

Anarky is a tough one to gauge as he didn't have a huge number of appearances, but from what little saw -- the way he was able to calculate the coming of the great threat to reality and figure out a way to defeat it, creating a Boom Tube home-made, finding ways to alter the minds of everyone in Gotham...he's probably in "big science" level, albeit at the lower level.

Calc and Oracle are great hackers/computer people, but aren't polymaths on the level of any of the above. They are about equal, with an edge to Oracle.

Sivanna doesn't have very many appearances. I think writers generally think of him on the Big Science level, but from what he's actually done I'd put him at the very low end of that level or about on par with Lex Luthor. He's created dimensional travel, suspendium (frozen time particles), and weapons that have lifted entire cities and badly hurt kryptonian level foes.

And one thing to note -- Hiro, the asian Toyman, got revealed to be a robot all along during Johns' Action Comics run. He's just an artificial intelligence created by Schlott (who probably deserves a mention...he only really makes robots, but they are so sophisticated that no one on the planet can apparently tell that they are robots, including Superman and Batman).

Prep-Man
Wow, good work.

Chief is really something. The who Rita thing was crazy and on top of that, he will be giving himself Kryptonian powers.

Would you put Ray Palmer above TO Morrow?

And Holt is really getting a huge push. Out prepping Jason Burr and creating a device to take down a number of Black Lanterns.

Desaad
Originally posted by Prep-Man

Would you put Ray Palmer above TO Morrow?

Check out my ranking above; question answered. (no)



He was getting a push from Trautmann and Willingham, but Willingham is gone from the book and Trautmann doesn't seem to be doing any more DC stuff.

Robinson gave him an 'easy' push, less compelling and less textured, just having him build crazy machinery.

Q99
Wow, nice listing! Desaad did a great job there.

Prep-Man
Originally posted by Q99
Wow, nice listing! Desaad did a great job there.

Yeah, he did an amazing job sorting through most of them.

BTW, what amazing thing did Superman 1M do?

Q99
Originally posted by Prep-Man
Yeah, he did an amazing job sorting through most of them.

BTW, what amazing thing did Superman 1M do?

Iirc, he designed Solaris the Tyrant Sun, and his brain is a hypercomputer of sorts. He specifically designed Solaris even while his mental facilities were draining due to lack of power and he was infected with a mind-affected virus (which he needed to make Solaris to beat in order to save the Earth).


Though, it is sorta a cheat since he might not so much be an especially inventive scientist, just from an era when the knowledge of how to do so is more common. We don't know if he invented it or anything. But due to his future knowledge at the least he has scientific knowledge on level with the Brainiacs.

Desaad
Originally posted by Prep-Man
Yeah, he did an amazing job sorting through most of them.

BTW, what amazing thing did Superman 1M do?

He instantly knew what Steel's time machine was and was not capable of, he built Solaris, and more than that is that he was said to be something like 10 einsteins. I'd have to check to be sure, but it was clear he was supposed to be super smart.

Oh, and I almost forgot to add that Vril Dox would probably be one level lower. He's a 10th level intelligence, 2 levels down from both Brainiac 5 and Brainiac 3, and even further down from Brainiac 1 (who was born a 12 level and used outside means to increase his intelligence even further). His big feat was probably his forcefield network that made travel in and out of a galaxy impossible, basically.

Desaad
Originally posted by Q99
Iirc, he designed Solaris the Tyrant Sun, and his brain is a hypercomputer of sorts. He specifically designed Solaris even while his mental facilities were draining due to lack of power and he was infected with a mind-affected virus (which he needed to make Solaris to beat in order to save the Earth).


Though, it is sorta a cheat since he might not so much be an especially inventive scientist, just from an era when the knowledge of how to do so is more common. We don't know if he invented it or anything. But due to his future knowledge at the least he has scientific knowledge on level with the Brainiacs.

Right, and I think that is worth considering when you think about how 'smart' someone is too -- T.O. Morrow inventing tesserect technology while going through puberty is a hell of a lot more impressive than Lyrl Dox doing it.

An issue of Johns JSA brought this up particularly. Mr. Terrific was working on a unified field theory, had an incomplete equation up on his chalk board. Starman, the mentally unstable Thom Kallor of the 31st century, comes up to the board and basically completes it on a whim, saying he learned it when he was in kindergarten.

Is there any doubt that Mr. Terrific is more intelligent than the never-above-average Thom? I don't think so, but Thom had the advantage of coming from a far more impressive time period.

psycho gundam
Originally posted by Prep-Man
Does anyone have the balls to put these guys in order? At least in genius/super genius lists. I'll give a list and if I left out anyone, please contribute. No high end cosmics.

Brainiac
Lex Luthor
Ray Palmer
The Chief
Lord Havok
Brainiac 5
Pre-Crisis Captain Comet
TO Morrow
Professor Ivo
Professor Stien
Adam Strange
Professor Haley
Dr. Sivanna
Mr. Mind
Hiro Okamura
Professor Cale
Anarky
Batman
Mr. Terrific
Alexander Luthor
Lobo
RIP Hunter
Gorilla Grodd
The Ultra Humanite
Epoch
Per Degaton
Pre-Crisis Barry Allen
Prometheus
I.Q.
Pre-Crisis Superman
Steel
Calculator
Oracle
Toyman
Ryan Choi
Tedd Kord
Will Magnus
Gizmo
Abra Kadabra
Monsieur Mallah (The Brain) desaad and the calculator

edit* i just saw calculator

Harbinger
H1a8 and a calculator.

psycho gundam
masterbruce is above him

Prep-Man
Desaad has build some sadistic crap. All New Gods have. Orion built the Genesis Box.

Desaad
For what it's worth, I put Reed Richards and arguably Doctor Doom on the cosmic level -- Richards is definitive, I think, despite not actually having his own time machine. Doom doesn't have invention feats on his level, or even close really, but he's got some good ones.

Zack M
Brainiac (Convergence) is definitely cosmic level.

Zack M
Originally posted by Desaad
I'm not going to go through all of these, because to be frank a lot of them are superfluous and don't deserve mention based on their feats or the paucity of their appearances.

In your first tier 'mortal' guys, you're going to have the cosmically smart. Here you'll have Brainiac 1, Brainiac 3 (Lyrl), Brainiac 5, Sardath, Alexander Luthor, and probably T.O. Morrow. You'd also have Superman 1 Million and Batman 1 Million, most likely, if you care to count them. Each of those has done something truly astounding.

Brainiac 3 just created a Solaris-Class stellar supercomputer, Pulsar Stargrave, by collapsing a pulsar. This makes it the most sophisticated super computer in the universe. He's a 12th level intelligence, which puts him on par with Brainiac 5. Now Brainiac 1 just, on the fly, created a device to contain/hold a rampaging Pulsar Stargrave (ie, contain Solaris). He's also demonstrated the ability to shrink cities down, his tech was co opted to create a planet out of nothing, and he easily destroyed a star/sun. Brainiac 5 has created a number of crazy devices, perhaps most impressive being the "Concentrator", which literally absorbs/utilizes/concentrates every joule of energy in the ENTIRE universe into whatever effect the user wants. It's...disturbing. He's got other feats as well, of force fields and coming up with cures for this and that, outsmarting vast artificial intelligences, etc.

Sardath has created the Zeta Beam, which allows instantaneous transportation across the universe. He also invented the Omega Beam, which allows the transfer of VAST amounts of matter into energy, so much so that it was threat to the universe -- had Starbreaker gotten his hands on it, he would have converted all matter in the universe to energy and absorbed it all. Even normal Zeta Beam tech can teleport planets, though, as demonstrated in a recent issue of REBELS.

Alexander Luthor really only just has the one feat, but it's kind of a doozy. He created a device to literally manipulate the multiverse, combining and separating universes at his whim. Insanity.

T.O. Morrow is probably the only normally earth guy who deserves a mention here. He apparently learned to 'unlock the hidden space between dimensions' when he was 14 (ie, dimensional creation), he's created time machines and vast super computers that alter reality via time manipulation. He also turns iPods into death rays and creates synthetic souls (Tomorrow Woman, Red Tornado).

Metron is almost a cut above, but since Alexander Luthor got mentioned, I'll give him a shout out. He's created Boom Tubes and the Worlogog and the Moebius Chair, he helped develop the Mother Box (with Himon), controls Hypertime, etc.


Next would come the really big science guys. I this grouping might be The Chief, Ray Palmer, Prof. Ivo, Will Magnus, Professor Nichols, and maybe Mr. Terrific.

The Chief has invented a time machine, replaced the JLA's abilities with tech approximations, brought Rita back from the dead with just a piece of her skull, created nanobots that could literally do anything, including create a being so powerful that he was throwing his victims through the fourth wall into 'our' reality. And it looks like he's going to discover away to alter his genes so that he becomes Kryptonian.

Ray Palmer cracked the Hourman virus when Superman 1 Million said that only a Solaris class stellar computer could do so, created a time machine, created boom tube like teleportation devices, co created a device that made the user's wish come true, figured out how to neutralize a universe destroying cosmic phenomenon that hadn't ever been discovered, has been described as having a mind like the world's largest harddrive, and created the greatest shrinking technology in comics (in terms of power, range and versatility).

Prof. Ivo created Amazo and Tomorrow Woman, two of the physical most potent androids in comics, especially Amazo. He created a serum that made him immortal, he's created countless powerful androids.

Will Magnus has created a device that creates portals between dimensions/universes, the responsometers of the Metal Men which basically means he created souls out of code, flying cars controled and powered by his thoughts, etc.

Professor Nichols created a time machine and a "Maybe Machine" that predicts the future based up suppositions/questions one asks it, a sort of "What if.."

I wouldn't have put Mr. Terrific on here but for the fact that lately Robinson has been giving him a bit of a push, as he was able to create a device that destroyed all the Black Lanterns in a tri state area -- the only tech feat I know of to have accomplished such a thing -- and he's currently working on a way to defeat the Starheart. He also figured out how to travel through time, and his T-spheres are crazy advanced.

Next level down might be the more 'normal' geniuses, and this one covers a wider range IMHO. At the top of this level, maybe even pushing up into the higher level, you've got Steel and Lex Luthor, and then more in the middle you've got Batman and Gizmo. Steel is the engineer of the group, retrofitting time machines (though not building them from scratch, which is a strike against) and building all kinds of crazy powerful suits and nanotech and what not.

Lex Luthor vacillates (Post-Crisis) between being a business man and being a genius. Many of his greatest 'works' have been attributed to his staff. Lately he's made a bit of a comeback as an evil genius, having combined time pool technology with kryptonian weaponry to change the sun to red and various things like that, but he's not a straight up scientist guy anymore, and I doubt he will be shown to be in the upcoming Action run with Paul Cornell. If you take Pre-Crisis into account you're talking about putting him up at the cosmic level as he's making time machines out of orange juice boxes and tin foil.

RIP is a specialist in time, and pretty much only makes time technology. He's good at what he does, but it's limited inherently, and doesn't deserve to be listed along with all the polymaths above.

Anarky is a tough one to gauge as he didn't have a huge number of appearances, but from what little saw -- the way he was able to calculate the coming of the great threat to reality and figure out a way to defeat it, creating a Boom Tube home-made, finding ways to alter the minds of everyone in Gotham...he's probably in "big science" level, albeit at the lower level.

Calc and Oracle are great hackers/computer people, but aren't polymaths on the level of any of the above. They are about equal, with an edge to Oracle.

Sivanna doesn't have very many appearances. I think writers generally think of him on the Big Science level, but from what he's actually done I'd put him at the very low end of that level or about on par with Lex Luthor. He's created dimensional travel, suspendium (frozen time particles), and weapons that have lifted entire cities and badly hurt kryptonian level foes.

And one thing to note -- Hiro, the asian Toyman, got revealed to be a robot all along during Johns' Action Comics run. He's just an artificial intelligence created by Schlott (who probably deserves a mention...he only really makes robots, but they are so sophisticated that no one on the planet can apparently tell that they are robots, including Superman and Batman).

BTW, excellent post. Desaad will be missed. thumb up

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