sentinel (alan) v dr strange (classic)

Originally posted by Digi
Bit of a tough question, bc there aren't great head-to-head feats to compare. They're routinely referred to in the same breath as the JSA's "big guns" though, so at least on lip service, a LOT of writers and arcs treated them as roughly equal. Fate's feats trend into the more esoteric, whereas a lot of writers have Alan making green boxing gloves and such. Though I'd be remiss in not mentioning that he has in fact done things like phasing, invisibility, localized time manipulation, has a nanosecond reaction feat or two, and has drained and/or absorbed other energy sources (like from Thunderbolt, the 5D Imp), and has good showings against guys like Vulcan (the one that thrashed Classic Fate at one point, iirc) and the aforementioned Mordru, who he did great against given Mordru's level at the time. But it's again a situation where if Fate just went force against force, I'm betting on Alan every time. Feats like his "Book of Willpower" against Exodus, the space city where he went rogue and it took multiple teams to take him on, and when he powered an entire world-city built by the 5D-imp-powered Ultra-Humanite (then broke out and went ape-sh*t), tend to be next-level even compared to his peers.

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such a solid post, thanks for the info, seriously impressed with your vast comic book knowledge.

lol digi gotta groupie! j/k mrmind. digi's knowledge is indeed vast. 👆

Lol. But meh, my knowledge stops at a certain point, and this just happens to involve one of my favorites (Alan). If this were Nu52, or even members of the JSA that I didn't commit to memory as well, I'd be useless.

Anyway, go back into Silver Age enough and there are plenty of embarrassing showings too. But then, that's also somewhat true of Classic Strange, and lots of characters from that era (like PC Supes, whose variance in showings is legendary). But outside of the JSA books where Johns and others wanked him like no other, Alan tends to job pretty heavily, especially when another GL is involved who has the limelight. He was also used to "put over" certain villains, like Black Adam in the WWIII arc, so he has some head-to-head losses within the herald weight class.

So finding the "right" level is tough, but the good does tend to outweigh the bad, at least post original crisis. But his "norm" also doesn't involve those more creative powers I mentioned. He's usually just good for a good moralistic lecture and some basic green attacks, which is why he'd struggle against someone like Strange.