Re: captian marvel, hercules, wonderwoman strenght mystery.
Diana has, I'll note, matched strength with Captain Marvel on even terms before.
I think Superman is slightly above both of them, it's just their magic even things up.
Wonder Woman never took his best blows? He hit her once where she blacked out for a few seconds and next time he got ahold of her he crushed her wrist........
Yea, they both inflicted some real punishment.
That fight was quite... strange. Superman was under mind control, reacting sluggishly, and fighting like a complete moron, and that was supposed to be all out? Or maybe WW just assumed he was going all out because of the punishment she was taking, even though he clearly wasn't.It certainly didn't match the "going all out" seen in situations like the Imperiex battles. Even the blast of heat vision he gave WW was like a gentle trickle compared to some of the "all out" blasts we've seen him do.
It did damage and burn her to the bone. That is a very high-power blast.
It's not as wide as some of the ones he used against Imperiax, but that doesn't mean it's less powerful. It just means Diana is *tough*.
Nor did he react sluggishly if you ask me, he used Superspeed in combination with other powers and she used good timing and superior combat skills.
And that punch-from-the-sun-to-Earth? That's one of the strongest punches he's thrown, so he definitely was not holding back when it came to brute force.
I think you're looking at it the wrong way. "Diana survived, therefore he can't have been going all-out," vs ""Diana survived, therefore Diana is that tough." You're assuming she'd lose and using that as a base point, rather than looking at her performance against someone stated to be going all-out as the base point. The latter is definitely the written intention.
In that fight, he used his powers together and attacked *much* more aggressively than normal, there's only a few fights that compare, and he didn't show anything against the Imperiax probes that wasn't used against WW. The Elite fight showed more skill, but he planned that one carefully in advance, and he's never shown that level before or since. OWAW? Nah, that wasn't any better than Sacrifice, the difference is Diana is not so easy prey as a probe.
If you want to say Superman was toned down? I'll point out he wasn't toned down any more than Wonder Woman, they were scaled compared to each other as they normally compare.
Something often forgotten in these threads, Diana and Clark have fought *many* time in main continuity, and it's almost always a good fight, mostly draws. No matter how you spin Sacrifice, you can't explain those away.
Also please give me a list of beings Wonder Woman has taken down as powerful as Superman..........my memory is really terrible lol.......
Ares. Captain Marvel. The White Wizard. Genocide. Superman, amped by magic to be more powerful than normal Superman. Martian Manhunter. Kyle Rayner. Batman w/ kick. Zoom.