Originally posted by h1a8
I view high end Superman as being much stronger than Thanos and average holding back Superman is about equal to Thanos. Despero is significantly stronger than average Superman and thus significantly stronger than Thanos.
The problem with that reasoning is that averaging out Superman isn't really that easy of a task. If we assume Thanos = Kal holding back, we have to aknowledged there are many times in which Superman has held his own against Despero. You can always go "yes, but then Superman wasn't holding back", which is, for the most part, a convenient cop out. Despero is stronger than regular Superman, but not so much that Kal cannot put up a fight under optimal conditions. Unless Kal is explicitly stated to "go all out" or clearly stresses his powers, we cannot just assume he's operating at superior levels for the sake of measuring him with Thanos.