Unfortunately everyone here on this forum is basing his power levels on recent JLA comics...but what else is new when it comes to secondary DC heroes? Thus I have taken it upon myself to create a respect thread for Orion. I take absolutely no credit for the pics and information below. Kudos goes to Astro.
The Deep Six are a powerful group of Darkseid¡¦s elite, whose realm is the deep. They all, to one degree or another, have some form of mutative ability as well as super strength and invulnerability.
Orion tears through a group here, and completely and utterly destroys one of them with his Astro-Force.
In the set of images presented below, a newly reborn/resurrected Orion confronts a group of insane New Gods, headed by Lightray.
I believe the images speak for themselves, but just in case any of you guys might be doubting the power of even a single new god, I would refer to you Jimmy Olsen 147. In it, we have Superman struggling to defeat Magnar, a single New Genesian warrior. While it¡¦s clear that Superman does have a power advantage over this lone warrior, it does not seem to be more then twice as great, and twice during their encounter was Magnar able to knock Superman for a loop.
On his way to becoming Red Orion, wielder of the Anti-Life Equation, spawn of Chaos, he begins to lose his sense of right and wrong.
Here we have him grabbing Mantis from his energy cocoon, casually taking to the face, and holding him outstretched with one arm, threatening to kill him if he doesn¡¦t get the information he desires¡Kand then he does so anyway.
Mantis has only been defeated by one person save for Orion, and that was the Infinity Man. During his confrontation with the Infinity Man, Mantis himself says that his blasts can shatter solar systems and that he can freeze a planet by sucking away it's energy. He actually did have Infinity Man beaten, for a short time, in their confrontation until he himself was defeated.
However, when he faced Hal Jordan (GL) he easily defeated him, sucking the energy from his ring and sapping his will. He also took on an entire team of the Legion of Superheroes and, from the brief glimpse given, he seemed to be the favorite of that fight, at least.
That's how powerful Mantis is. And Orion owned him.
The below features a confrontation between an insane Lightray (Driven mad by the tainting of the Source) and Orion. While Lightray initially has the advantage. It's pretty clear that Orion dominates when he gets serious, even shrugging off having a piece of the celestial city dropped on him!
This is a nice one for those who things energy manipulators have a great edge on someone like Orion..And Lightray is one of the best energy manipulators in comics (How many of them have created entire suns from nothing?). NOTE: I'll create a Lightray respect thread later.
The below takes place after Orion goes through the Doom Tube and is ejected out of our universe and onto the Abysmal Plane. The beings he faces are the shadows of the Ecrous, the anti-thesis and eternal enemy of the Source.
A group of these shadows proved capable of trapping Clockworks, Lamplighter of the Stars and keeper of the cosmic axis.
The below takes place in New Gods v2 1. In this issue, Darkseid sends his forces to Earth with a Morrow Cube to absorb the life energy of the Earth for use on dread Apokalips.
Nothing seems able to stop it, and multiple New Gods actually die in the attempt.
Nevertheless, Orion goes forth, overcomes it's power and destroys it, along with a large part of the city.
When the Anti-Life Entity threatened the Universe entire, Orion and Superman (Along with numerous other heroes) teamed up to capture an aspect of that Anti-Life Entity.
Orion slaughtered an entire Thangarian army as a mere *distraction* for Superman, giving him the opportunity to capture said aspect.
The above is Orion¡¦s encounter with IT. The entire JLA seemed pressed to find a way to make this being notice their presence. Orion proves capable of injuring the beast, and even sending it into shock.
When Shiva the Destroyer, a shadow element that ruled the universe in the time betwixt the death of the old and the birth of the new, was awoken from his Eternal Sleep by the torment of the Source, he sought to rend the cosmos and rule once more.
It was up to Orion and Superman to stop him.
During the battle, Orion steadies Superman as he faulters before the barrage of deadly spikes, seals of holes in reality with his Astro-Force, and helps push the beast into a hole in reality.
When Superman is driven mad by Dominus, it is up to the JLA to stop him.
Superman, enhanced by his frequent trips to the sun, takes on the entire JLA and does quite well, breaking through Kyle's constructs and generally outclassing them.
Then Orion and Barda come in. Orion slugs it out with Superman for a few pages and gives as good as he gets. When Barda momentarily surprises him with the Mega Rod, Orion gets in a punch that stuns Superman and puts him down for a while.
The rest of the JLA then go on top of him and say that they can barely keep him contained.
When Orion is hit in EVERY fatal area known by a large group of Darkseid's assasins and then thrown into a fire pit, he comes back from it and heals in a matter of pages.
Regenerative abilities that are pretty impressive, I would say.
Orion walks through a New Genesis nuclear reactor with ONE THOUSAND nuclear explosions per minute. Orion continues on despite the tremendous heat and force:
When an artifact of the Old Gods is found on Earth by a not-so-slightly disturbed man, it it bequeaths to him incredible powers. Powers enough that Superman would say: "Nothing on Earth has such an energy signature!"
When a Doomsday device threatened to ¡§unmake the universe¡¨ it was stated that only the Astro-Force was an energy powerful enough to reverse the reaction and, furthermore, that only Orion could control the Astro Force.
Orion, newly freed from the Source and barely able to stand earlier in the issue, rides forth and contains and reverses the universe-wide event.
*sorry image won't load*
Right after doing such a thing, he effortlessly destroys the space fleet that created the device
Once his own essence is separated from that of Desaad (Which is why he destroyed the space fleet earlier) Orion is left a peace loving individual with virtually no skill or spirit in the ways of combat.
To recover this spirit and once again take his rightful place as protector of New Genesis he goes up against his once and former teacher, Valkrya, a being known as the greatest martial artist in the universe. Lady Shiva my ass.
Above, he owns Slig AND his army of mutated sea creatures.
Slig is a member of the Deep Six (The group you saw Orion demolish earlier). Due to the machinations of the Joker, he was released from his Prison (The Slab).
What makes this so darn impressive is that earlier in this issue, a STAR Labs scientist has this to say in regards to Slig's strength:
"...Part of a group known as the Deep Six. Slig is reportedly rated at strength class 100, a catagory placing him in the Superman range...."
What's more, his transmutative abilities (On organic beings, anyway) allowed him to mutate all life in the pacific ocean and, with a wave of his hand, transform it all back.
After being drained of his life energies for MONTHS (Enough to power Metropolis, apparently) he decides that he's been trapped long enough and that he wants to escape.
Lightray finds the shards of Orion¡¦s Astro-Gauntlets on the ocean floor and brings them to Orion. Orion reconfigures them with a thought, and then proceeds to reconfigure his costume and Harness.
When Arnicus Wolfram, a Lex Luthor type villain that has lived a millennia by siphoning the energy of others into himself, spends the majority of his fortune to obtain Apokoliptan weapons from Intergang in an effort to kill Orion, he travels back in time to the Ivy Mike detonation, the most powerful explosion ever set off by man.
A single blast of Radion kills most New Gods (See Avia) and stuns even the likes of Kalibak for a good amount of time (As Orion did in the Evanier run).
The nuclear device COMBINED with the radion might have killed Orion.
This a feat on multiple levels we get a glimpse into his durability, but more importantly are the incredible planning skills he shows here, using time as a weapon against Arnicus and defeating him before he ever stood foot on the battle field.
I'm looking for the scan of Orion standing with his eyes just plucked out and these guys start shooting at him and he catches the bullets, while blind and throws them back through the barrel and into the shooter.
Cool fight eh? So much for not being in Supes league. And damn Kal, get other trousers, thats the third time you looked like a certain bearded greek guy.
And of course, Against Pre Crisis Darkseid. Doing alone better than Superboy and Supergirl.
The Orion vs. Darkseid- This was done in the form of "honorable warrior's combat"; IOW strictly HTH, though at the end DS cheated to throw the fight. Orion actually does get ahead on points before DS throws it. Anyway, something to note about this fight is that both combatants are fighting like hardcore martial artists, relying on speed and skill the entire time. Here it is:
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Sep 10th, 2005 06:11 PM
