Anyway, I think Blue Marvel takes him. Blue Marvel's individual strength feats, like nearly splitting the moon in half, lifting the Enterprise aircraft carrier, and carrying an asteroid the size of Arkansas are more quantifiable than Captain Atom's. Most of Captain Atom's strength best strength feats are:
- statements (he was stated to be strong enough to move mountains in JLE, which on average, weighs about 260,000,000,000 tons, from what I've read). We never see Captain Atom actually do this on panel. Take it how you wanna take it.
- unquantifiable (carried a large stone that was "the weight of his own pride" in Purgatory). How much does his pride weigh, exactly?
- are based on power scaling (Mr. Majestic, Ultraa, Kylstar* etc). Ultraa, being an Almeracian like Maxima, should be more than enough to fight Kryptonians (if we assume his strength-level is anywhere around Maxima's, who has fought Superman and Doomsday).
- His best showing is probably against Mr. Majestic, and while it's shown that Maj can move planets around, that doesn't mean that Captain Atom can do the same or is at least as strong as Maj. I will say that he's more than strong enough to fight someone at that strength level though (considering the fact that he KO'ed Maj in their first encounter). There's also the possibility that Maj was holding back some in that first encounter too, but it's debatable, since Maj did say that "he was going to send him back to where he came from in pieces." It could be argued that he was holding back because he underestimated Captain Atom at the time.
- striking power (hit Firestorm so hard that it knocked both Ronnie and Martin out of the Firestorm Matrix).
- *against Kylstar, it took the combined might of Captain Atom and Superman to beat him; he was briefly dominating both of them. Simultaneous punches from the both of them cracked his face, ending the fight.
- he does, however, have consistent showings of durability against superpowered beings, though. I've already listed those in a separate post.
Even if we taking power-scaling into account, Blue Marvel has a better track record of that (Namor, Anti-Man, Sentry, King Hyperion, Ultimate Hulk) and actually outperforms Captain Atom when it comes to physical confrontations vs superpowered beings in his class. That said, Captain Atom isn't consistently shown to showcase his superhuman strength, in or out of battle. While Captain Atom struggled against the Justice League while holding back and was moreso defending himself, Blue Marvel knocked Sentry into orbit and briefly dominated the Avengers (Iron Man, Ms. Marvel, Ares, Wonder Man) until he was eventually brought down.
Captain Atom probably excels over Blue Marvel in terms of energy manipulation and such, but I don't think he does to point where Blue Marvel can't contend with him in that regard. Plus, Blue Marvel possesses genius-level intellect, and I believe it wouldn't take him long to figure out how Captain Atom's powers work or figure out how to get around them. There's also the possibility of Captain Atom quantum-jumping if he absorbs too much energy. Captain Atom has had this limitation exploited numerous times, especially against opponents that he's fought the first time, whom had no prior knowledge of his limitations. So there's no reason to think the same couldn't happen here.
EDIT: I forgot to mention how Captain Atom wore down Dr. Manhattan with energy blasts after everyone else couldn't faze him. It didn't put him down completely, though... Hmmm... I don't think it changes anything, however.
This is just my take on it though.
Log in to comment