Respect Libra, Herald of Darkseid, The Anti-Life that Walks (DC Comics)

 

This blog was requested of me so....hope it helps.

Libra was originally the genius human Justin Ballantine. His mother died to her alcoholic pharmacist mismeasuring medicine she needs. His father became abusive after her death and one night found little Justin on the roof stargazing. Angry at him "wasting his time" he went to strike his son, but lost his balance and fell to his death. Justin found that all things seemed to revolve around balance; the balance of medicines, the balance of gravity, the balance of the stars. He created with his genius a device capable of removing half the power of anything, so he could absorb it, planning on absorbing the incalculable light of the stars.

But as he grew in power, he transcended past the human condition, losing himself to the cosmos. Far above on dark Apokalips, the dark tyrant Darkseid brought about the rebirth of Libra as a being like the new gods, wanting to use his unique power for his aim... After the great war in Heaven, as Darkseid dying finally triumphed over Heaven, his falling form fell into the multiverse he sent Libra as his herald to declare his triumph on the Earth. Libra was reborn as something akin to the new gods, but not. 

Intelligence/Cosmic Awareness:

Libra is a scientic supergenius, built his Energy Transmortifier, an incredible machine allowing him to absorb half the energy of the Milky Way Galaxy. This is a particularly impressive feat given that even Darkseid seems to be impressed with this ability, making Libra part of his plans, Darkseid being a Type 5 Hypergenius who can do things like create technology to turn people into cosmic forces.

 He is knowledgeable about the history of DC's Crisis. He's also a clever manipulator, using the JLA's foes as pawns against them and called a more fearsome foe than any of the JLA's previous ones as of his first appearence in the 1970s.

Libra as he ascended to the Sphere of the Gods gained a cosmic awareness, seeing sights and hearing sounds far beyond those man knows. He saw images, concepts, ideas, he could never dream off.

Power-Stealing:

Libra's most famous power, and during his first confrontation with the JLA in Bronze Age, his only ability. Libra created a machine that allowed him to steal the energies from others. He outfitted his minions with belts that let them drain the JLA's powers, even taking something as broad as Batman's intelligence. Libra's machine was so strong that it allowed him to steal half the energy of the Milky Way Galaxy itself which began his ascendance.

Power:

After reappearing Libra demonstrates advanced strength, though somewhat vaguely. He does not seem to demonstrate the godly physical stats of the New Gods. Libra physically overpowered Hawkgirl, throwing her a distance to protect the minor villain the Living Flame. However he never shows the ability to physically fight any of DC's large-name bricks physically. But his power is not primarily physical, and it is noted on another instance that his power is "Incalculable."

Teleportation/Conceptual Movement:

Libra teleports Martian Manhunter to him, and reached the Sphere of the Gods without a boom tube.

Fire Projection/Regeneration Negation:

Libra caused his weapon, a pair of scales to alight in flame and killed the Martian Manhunter with it despite his regeneration.

Paralysis:

Libra as he begins to ascend to Godhood, immobilized the JLA so they couldn't even try to stop him. 

Mental Manipulation/Aura/Passive Forcefield:

Libra's voice is supernaturally persuasive after becoming Herald of Darkseid. His aura naturally shields him temporarily shielding him from a repeated barrage of fists from the speedster Inertia.

Mental Manipulation Resistance and Granting:

As he was dying, Martian Manhunter tried to mentally overcome the Injustice Gang. Despite being highly weakened, he succeeded in mentally brainwashing all of them into seeing the JLA killing them brutally, however Libra was immune and Libra cleansed them of the effect. Spectre was also unable to read Libra's true name.

Spiritual Resistance:

Crispus Allen Spectre went to punish Libra. Libra however proved immune to the Spectre's powers proclaming himself a unique being in the universe, eternal and which the Spectre has no power over. He then sent the Spectre away forcefully.

Those are basically all the powers, Libra demonstrates. But it gets a bit more complex.

Stolen Powers:

During the first battle with the JLA, Libra uses minions to steal powers from the JLA. He stole Green Lantern's power ring's energy and Aquaman's "amphibian powers", Superman's strength, the Flash's speed, the Elongated Man's streching powers, and Batman's intelligence.

If you just used the powers listed that would suggest Libra gained universal level energy projection/constructs, Aquman's... water-breathing I guess?, universal strength/durability, Conceptual level speed, elasticisity and type 5 intelligence. 

But then he used the Energy Transmortifier to absorb half the power of the entire galaxy. The Earth and other inhabitated planets with metahumans are within the DC Milky Way Galaxy. So...it's possible he gained half of EVERY powerset that was on DC Earth at the time.

And that sounds insane, but...he's actually stronger after his rebirth.

Anti-Life Equation:

During the storyline "Death of the New Gods", a storyline which is considered apocryphal, meaning potentially canon potentially not, it is revealed what the Anti-Life is. Anti-Life is actually a living entity, and one half of the Source, the infinite energy representing imagination that created all the new gods according to it. It is possible that this half was what caused Libra's recreation for when Libra returns to Earth he is called by Lex Luthor the Anti-Life Equation itself suggesting he temporarily absorbed half of the Source itself. This is implied again with his being the cause of the Justifier Helmets which forcibly imbue one with Anti-Life making them slaves to Darkseid.

So what is the Anti-Life Equation? If Libra is truly host body to the ALE he is host to an unfathomably strong entity. The Anti-Life Equation is a mathematical equation proving life is meaningless. What can it do?

• Warp all of Creation to take away God's light.
• Turned the gods of New Genesis into homeless people on Earth.
• Nullified the powers of the New Gods by severing their connection to the Source.
• Usage of it can kill a large number of gods accidentally.
• A mere aspect of it controlled all of Thanagar.
• Can bind conceptual entities like the Black Racer to one's whim.
• Turned a regular scientist into the Anti-Monitor.

And this is really the tip of the iceberg. The Anti-Life Entity is a conceptual entity like the New Gods, but far greater. Libra is given the title "The Anti-Life that walks" seemingly because just as the New Gods took human body to manifest on Earth in FC, so too did the ALE manifest in Libra. 

Weaknesses:

Libra's human body is relatively speaking, cosmically fragile considering the force that seems to be within. Inertia managed to really beat him up after he got past the aura, he implied he wouldn't be able to beat Martian Manhunter in a fight, and Lex Luthor shot him dead with one strike.

Also Libra seems to have a strangely idealistic belief that all evil beings are mutually working towards the cause of evil's sake, and while he anticipates treacheries for evil, he never expects a villain to do good which has led to two of his defeats indirectly. He's like the moral opposite of the moral paragon hero who can't understand how any hero would ever turn from justice. Libra has lost 2-3 times, the first time being arguable during his first appearence where he gained so much power he ascended from reality uncontrollably. The other two times, once by the Flash's Rogue Gallery and once by Lex Luthor were both because a villain betrayed his expectations. He's never once been actually defeated by a member of the JLA or any hero.

Summary:

Name: Libra, Justin Ballantine, the Anti-Life that walks

Origin: DC Comics

Powers and Abilities: Possibly Conceptual Nature, Enhanced Stats and Intelligence, Power-Stealing, Teleportation, Conceptual Movement, Fire Projection, Regeneration Negation, Paralysis, Mental Manipulation, Aura/Passive Forcefield, Resistance to Mental and Spiritual Manipulation | Vastly Higher Stats, Elasiticity, Water-Breathing, Enhanced Senses, Cosmic Awareness, Likely far more | Infinite Conceptual Reality-Warping especially enslaving entities to Darkseid's will

Destructive Capacity: Building Level+ (Scales above low tiers physically) | Universal+ (Stole half of Superman's strength and Green Lantern's energy) | Infinite (Anti-Life granted Anti-Monitor enough power to reduce infinite universes to 5)

Range: At least Galactic (absorbed half the power of the Milky Way) | Possibly Universal | Possibly Infinite

Speed: Hypersonic (Scales to DC Low Tiers) | Infinite Conceptual Speed (Half the speed of Barry Allen who can travel to other realms a conceptually infinite distance away)

Durability: Building Level+ (Scales above low tiers physically), possibly higher (took a beating from Inertia) | Universal+ (Stole half of Superman's durability)

Stamina: Unknown

Standard Equipment: Spear, Scales, Energy Transmortifier

Intelligence: Possibly Type 5 Supergenius (Created technology that granted power considered notable by Darkseid) | Type 5 Supergenius (Half of Batman's intelligence)

Key: Base | With the stolen powers | Anti-Life 

Pretear-verse Strategy Guide

 

How to be OP in the Pretear-verse

Regional Scale Threat:

The world is founded on the primordial energy of life, Leafe, the spirit of being underpinning all matter. a Secret group of 7 knights, the Leafe Knights guard this world awaiting the day the princess, the Pretear comes into her role. This tier includes the 7 Leafe Knights and the Saihi Seeds they fight.

This tier scales to at least low building level scaling from Goh, Knight of Heat/Fire, and Mannen, Knight of Cold/Ice being able to burn or freeze trees, control the temperature of meters of lava, and the youngest of the Knights Shin the Knight of Plants creating vines that reached up the length of large buildings. The tier also scales to Hayate, Knight of Wind, who flies across the city at the speed of hte wind, speeds of subsonic. As such the stat level is subsonic low building level.

The Leafe Knights are highly accomplished warriors who are either ageless or age very slowly as they seem to be the same age despite the passage of 16 years since the battle of Saihi Fenrir. They can also freely travel between Earth and Leafenia, another world that is their home base suggesting dimensional travel. They also took Himeno through dimensions suggesting they have dimensional BFR capacity. The 7 together also have sealing ability, as 16 years ago they sealed the fallen Pretear Saihi Fenrir for 16 years. It's unknown if they have sealing individually. They also seem to be able to affect non-corporeal things like spiritual projections as though physical.

Each of the Leafe Knights also is associated with an elemental that they can turn into an attack or a barrier. They can sense their elements, even to the point that Sasame was able to hear all sound across an entire city though it was highly taxing on him, making him feel sick afterwards. The Leafe Knights can command their element to the range they can sense it, with potency of aforemnetioned low building level. Hayate the leader of the Leafe Knights can manipulate wind, even gaining flight with it. Goh and Mannen control heat/fire and cold/ice respectively. Sasame and Kei control sound and light respectively, with Sasame being able to understand all languages even animal and technology. Finally the youngest knights Hajime and Shin control water and plants respectively. 

Their enemy Saihi Fenrir manifests seeds of her power which possess pieces of nature, turning them into animate Saihi Seeds, causing poison and corroding nature around them with their dark aura, sucking up all leafe or spirit like a vortex. They are considered a major threat to the Leafe Knights. These seeds can even go inside living people, possessing them. 

So what strategies are good at fighting the tier? Well the Leafe Knights have a very distinctive weakness, which is stamina. The Leafe Knights can not create leafe themselves which is why they need the Pretear so badly. Without her in a fight, all their magical power has to come from their own leafe, their spirits. Overuse of their leafe will injure and eventually kill them. As such the ideal strategy is anything that forces the Leafe Knights to fight for a long time which calls to mind summoning. Summon a large army of enemies, even if the Leafe Knights can fodderize the members individually will quickly run down the Knights of their power, something that happens near the end of Pretear when Saihi freed transmutes every tree in the city into a Saihi Seed. Duplication would serve even better. Illusions could hypothetically do similar though Sasame's powers means stealth is not necessarily as strong as it would be. Regen similarly to make the fight last a while would be helpful, but not as good as at some point the Knights will simply BFR the enemy or seal them away.

As for the Saihi Seeds, while their lifedrain and poison are powerful offensive hax, they don't kill non-living things very quickly. The combination of these two strategies leads my mind to a very particular type of strategy that being the necromancer archetype.

An undead mage summoning a horde of zombies would present a pretty big threat to the verse, the zombie swarm being able to outlast the Leafe's energy, and them all being dead means they could kill a Saihi seed before it could kill them. However any form of contagious undead could be very dangerous for similar reasons but with perhaps more helpful abilities and more intelligent fight pattern which brings me to my first counter

Dracula from the Batman

Dracula smashed a stone pillar to pieces with one strike and scales to the Batman in reactions who can dodge point blank bullets, putting him at around the tier in terms of power. Dracula is a vampire who can infect other people into vampires by draining their blood, able to quickly create a small group of vampires who cna wear down any of the Leafe Knights in combat. Dracula can also be revived from just a single drop of his blood making it very difficult for anyone in the tier to wear him down conventionally.

Dracula is a master of stealth and while Sasame might be able to detect him if looking from say the screeching of bats, if very possible this would take a while if he doesn't know there's a threat giving Dracula time to multiply his forces and grow in strength while he would be able to detect them due to his blood sense. Dracula's teleportation is functionally as strong as the Leafe Knights dimensional travel in combat, and his hypnosis is something none of the Leafe can resist and would potentially stop them from sealing him.

Most notably Dracula was able to remove Vicki Vale's life energy to imbue into his dead wife to revive her. This would be insanely broken against the Leafe since it would rid them of their Leafe keeping them from using their magical powers instantly. 

That said while Kei's light manipulation isn't sunlight and so probably wouldn't work on Dracula, it's possible they could manuever him somehow into the light while fighting or that they could BFR him. For an even harder to kill counter you could use

Kayako from the Grudge

Kayako is not quite as strong as the Leafe Knights though is able to shake an apartment putting her at least somewhat relative. Speedwise she can move faster than the eye can track putting her at similar speeds.

Kayako can move around invisibility and inaudibly, meaning even Sasame and Kei wouldn't be able to detect her if she didn't want. Kayako has absorbed the souls of everyone she's ever killed, hundreds of people, and can summon them as zombies, duplicate herself for each one, or create illusions. This would be absolutely cruel to use against the tier as they would be fighting a seemingly never-ending wave of zombie/ghosts some of which they can't tell where they are and which can one-shot them by absorbing their souls. Kayako has teleportation across dimensions, dramatically better than the tiers meaning if they tried to BFR her, she could simply BFR them in return.

If she wanted to she could even possess them or turn them murderous to have them fight each other, not that she particularly needs too. And obviously the Saihi Seeds wouldn't be able to do much against her since she is a dead Onryo. Hypothetically their leafe drain would eventually kill her, but that's way too slow given how quickly she can destroy things like living evil trees.

The only weakness is if she overconfidently attacked them head-on right at the start the 7 could seal her, and if they did she might not be able to escape since she is dependent on the Demonic Abyss, and wouldn't be able to survive 16 years without it. They're a lot more skilled fighters. Sasame and Kei might be able to sense her as well depending on how much she focuses on being stealthy. If she's flying Hayate might also be able to sense the change in air currents or Mannen might be able to sense her cold presence.

For the best counter to the tier, I would suggest

Kai Parker from the Vampire Diaries

Kai Parker as a Witch/Vampire hybrid and one of the strongest vampires in the world, scales above the vampire Marcel who withstood an explosion comparable in size to a small building. Vampires are also fast enough to simply appear next to people as though they had teleported. Given that normal vampires are similar in stats, if not faster, than the Leafe Knights, Kai should have a signifigant stat advantage over the tier.

Kai was orginally a Siphoner, someone who can sense and absorb the magic of others which could mess with the Leafe Knights dramatically be weakening their abilities. He can create a vampire army by infecting people and has the stealth+intelligence to do so. He has invisibility-based magic and with simpel hand gestures can create loud disorienting sounds that mess with people that sense by sound like Sasame. He is a massively skilled manipulator sociopath that could blend into societ regardless while the Leafe wouldn't know where the threat is coming from.

He also has his own elemental manipulation to get around the Leafe's blasts and barriers, can use sleep manipulation which is pretty dangerous considering how few fighters the verse has in general, and has illusions that can help wear down the Knights' leafe reserves. Beyond that he dimensional travel so strong as being able to bring him and others outside and inside a prison dimension suggesitng he could get around the Leafe' sealing ability. He also many abilities to aggravate further pain and exertion such as telekinetically attacking peoples organs or inducing excrutiating pain making it even harder for them to use their magic. Overall Kai would just be an absolute nightmare for the verse. Even if they found out his identity, he has memory erasure to resume his secret identity.

Planetary Scale Threat:

A girl of legend is born, the Pretear, one who can create new leafe, who can imbue the world with life and spirit. However the previous Pretear fell to darkness and hatred, becoming the princess of destruction Saihi Fenrir. This tier contains the current Pretear Himeno Awayuki and Saihi Fenrir herself. 

The two in terms of raw power scale to multi-city block to town level scaling from Saihi granting one of her seeds power to cause an earthquake, and causing unnatural red snowfall with her actions. In terms of speed, Saihi Fenrir is made of darkness. As darkness is the absense of light, this should scale the to lightspeed exactly along with arguable scaling to Kei's light.

Saihi Fenrir's physical body is still sealed away. However after 16 years she was able to spiritually project, and its her spiritual projection that is really being fought during the series. As such it has spiritual existence. Her most distinctive force gained when her heart fell to darkness. Instead of emitting energy, Saihi Fenrir absorbs leafe within her, draining the world of its energy.

This is by far her most dangerous power as its strong enough that it was stated she was going to bring about the end of the world all things, with leafe forming the foundation for matter itself. It is stated that her power would leave the world an empty silent void without temperature. It's strongly implied this would not just be planetary but universal as not even temperature or light would continue to exist, and contextually its clear that the Leafe Knights couldn't avoid this by going to Leafenia. As things derived of all leafe disappear no longer exist as it forms the foundation for all things this is essentially universal scale energy+life draining and existence erasure.

After her possessing a civilian to get a body, she caused an unnatural red snow with her powers said to bring calamity, though what that means is unclear. It began draining the leafe from things making it hard to see, to hear, to feel things derived from light, sound, and temperatures. She also transmuted the trees of the city into her Saihi Seeds of the prior tier. These trees can do things like "eat" all the sound leafe in an area so people didn't know Himeno was in trouble. 

However she was stopped by the pretear of the current generation, Himeno Awayuki. As a Pretear, she has the power to create new leafe, new energy. After awakening to her power this gives her a functionally infinite stamina as she can create new energy for herself. Initially she had no idea how to use her power and had to fuse with the Leafe Knights so she could create leafe to power their elemental magic. However she eventually awakens to her form as White Pretear, giving her the powers of all the Leafe Knights, as well as access to the fullness of her leafe energy. During her battle with Saihi Fenrir, as Fenrir tried to absorb all leafe, Himeno embraced her clashing her energy creation ability with Fenrir's energy absorption, the two actually perfectly equaling out suggesting Pretear's spiritual energy creation reached similar universal levels before Pretear purified her.

Both of them also have similar power, flight, and Himeno was able to tell someone was watching her showing minor enhanced awareness. Himeno has purification that was able to reach Saihi Fenrir's buried love and defeated her. Himeno is also a martial arts master physically relative to the Knights before gaining her magic. 

So how to fight this tier? It's definitely intimidating to fight someone at town level whose a spiritual entity with universal erasure + energy drain. Well her powers definitely seem to work on loving things faster, as it is specifically draining the life from things, as such a non-physical or non-living counter would give at least some resistance. Beyond that purification was what worked on her in canon so a counter with purification should work here as well.

What also is notable is that there are only 2 fighters on the tier, and both are of the emotionally unbalanced sort, Saihi Fenrir being a love-mad vengeful spirits and Himeno being the impulsive sort prone to not thinking things clearly. What that means is manipulation, either brainwashing or even just general manipulation would likely be much stronger than normal as it only has to work on 1 person to control half the tier, and on both it would just outright solo. Himeno especially wouldn't want to fight something cute. Which brings me to my first counter

Fluttershy from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

Fluttershy is arguably the second fastest of the Mane 6 able to outpace when heavily determined a slightly weighed down Rainbow Dash who is much faster than Twilight Sparkle. Twilight Sparkle for comparison was able to light-time, putting Fluttershy in the speed range for the tier. Fluttershy is also stronger than Spike who dispersed a large ice cloud with his fire breath putting her in the general range for the tier.

Fluttershy usually avoids direct fighting preferring to befriend enemies or to stop them with her technique "The Stare", an intimidating stare that compels people to stop fighing. This would very likely allow Fluttershy to stop Saihi Fenrir given her psychologically unstable nature. From there it would be pretty easy for Himeno to beat her assuming Himeno prefers to target Saihi Fenrir over Fluttershy which...is pretty hard to argue. Not only would the Stare probably work on Himeno as well, Fluttershy just in general has an alright chance against Himeno in a fight even if she's not as versatile or skilled.

However given that human world Rainbow Dash was able to briefly tap into her was able to tap into one of her elements it's likely Fluttershy could tap into her own element, an element strong enough to seal the spirit of Chaos Discord and therefore should likely be able to seal Fenrir as the Leafe Knights did, as well as undue effects targeting Fluttershy. Like the Elements of Harmony on the whole are stronger than even Himeno's Leafe Creation suggesting if she could use the Element of Kindness Fluttershy could replicate Himeno's exact strategy against Saihi Fenrir, if not better and just overpower Himeno.

That said without the Element of Kindness if you don't think she can use it Himeno probably beats Fluttershy due to superior versatility and skill, and Fluttershy would be endangered by Fenrir's abilities if she gets them off. For more of a warrior counter you could use

Limone from Wedding Peach

Limone is a warrior angel and should at least be comparable to the illusionist devil Arushion who created a false dimension which stretched to the surroundings and Momoko's henshin into Wedding Peach which destroyed the aforementioned devil. The battle between Angels and Devils in Wedding Peach regularly uses light and darkness attacks against each other, scaling them to the same speed as the tier, if not much higher as more powerful angelic beings have feats of traveling and projecting light between worlds quickly.

Limone uses holy spiritual power, a purifiying power that would absolutely work on Saihi Fenrir considering WP-verse has way better purification feats than Pretear. Saihi Fenrir is ultimately a misguided human while the light of the WP-verse angels can work on devils, literal spiritrs of hatred. Momoko even in her civilian form was able to purify a lesser devil with her sheer presence suggesting Limone might purify Saihi Fenrir with her presence. Likewise her even trying to fight him may not work as angels can purify the energies of malice and hatred. Plus he can travel and bfr through dimensions traveling often from Angel World to the Human World and even the Devil World, which is something that against the Leafe Knights Saihi Fenrir actually somewhat struggled with.

Against Himeno Limone is a far more composed warrior being characterically calm and devoted as opposed to tempermental and his ability to combat specifically malices may be able to keep her from attacking him just in general. Beyond that while Himeno is a master fighter Limone is a warrior angel who has fought devils for over a century, and can create angelic barriers strong enough to protect against some of the strongest devils in the series who are in the planetary range, meaning it can easily block all of Himeno's attacks.

The only threat for Limone is that he is pure spirit or in Pretear terms pure leafe. It's unclear whose passive presence would work first; Saihi and forces leafe drain or Limone's purification, though I would personally bet on Limone and if they start at far enough range and Limone doesn't avoid through other dimensions Saihi could absorb the leafe of the universe which would work on Limone. For the ultimate counter you could use

A Fuzzy from BlazBlue.

Fuzzies are a series of units made from the remains of the Black Beast. While Unit 16 was able to fight relatively early Ragna fairly evenly, the stats of early Fuzzies are unknown and could be interpreted dramatically lower, dramatically higher or, as I'm using here, actually even scaling off an early attack from Tager calced at 900 kilotons. Given Fuzzies were able to fight this Tager even when highly weakned you could scale this hypothetically to early Fuzzy Units. Likewise light-timing also exists for even low tiers in the verse, suggesting a Fuzzy would have a notable stat advantage but be fair to use.

Fuzzies are artifical half-vampire units meaning they would be completely immune to all leafe based attacks like Saihi's leafe drain. This is troublesome as Fuzzies have regen that allow them to supposedly regenerate from any wound, essentially requiring a hax to work on them something the verse would be extremely hard-pressed to find. Likewise in combat they summon armies of the undead, similarly immune to leafe-based attacks. 

But couldn't Pretear purify them? ... Highly unlikely. Fuzzies are remanants of the Black Beasts and are massive sadists. They're clearly way more corrupt than Saihi Fenrir which took all of Pretear's power to purify.

However that doens't bring up the real threat that the Fuzzies possess. Fuzzies are stated to be able to control not just skeletons and ghouls as seen but also spirits. Even assuming this doesn't work on Saihi Fenrir since she is still technically alive, it's implied the Pretear line goes back a long time, and it's possible the Fuzzy could raise an army of undead Pretear...given their hearts would be turned to hatred this would essentially be like summoning an army of Saihi Fenrir.

This is not even adding in the possibility they may scale to any of the more insane broken hax in the verse that they might being literally pieces of the Black Beast. Even without that though, they are immune to almost every ability in the verse, would be extremely difficult to defeat conventionally, can summon an invulnerable army of characters each identical to the villain which is one of the two tops, all while flying around and one-shotting basically anyone.

And that's how to be OP in Pretear.

Matchups I wanna see (that I don't wanna research)

 

So as someone who makes matchups very often if I want to do one, I can just do it even if it's really dumb or no one but me will care about it. However to properly do a matchup you need to research a series, and for some series that's really hard. So there are 10 matchups I'd wanna see eventually from someone but I don't wanna do the work for, ranked roughly in order of how much I'd wanna see the matchup and how difficult it would be for me. I might do a few of the fights on this list eventually but if I do they would take a lot from me.

10: Majokko Club Battle Royale

During the 1980s, Studio Pierrot was the clear leader of the Magical Girl genre by far, and they created a group of their magical girl protagonists called the Majokko Club. I'd love to see a BR with them. I put it this low because I'm not really sure if it qualifies for this list or not. See while I'd be happy to do the research for this series, some of these series are actually really hard to find. I did the research for Creamy Mami, and Pastel Yumi can be found pretty easily but Magical Emi and Persia the Magic Fairy I can both only find in sections. Plus Creamy Mami fought Minky Momo in a crossover so you'd have to do Minky Momo research and that's a long convoluted history that probably wouldn't even give any upgrades.

9: Mickey Mouse vs Bugs Bunny

I think this one speaks for itself, both characters have a ridiculous amount of content but is like possibly the two most famous characters in the world that happen to be rivals with actually fairly comparable stats and haxes. I don't have a super big attachment to either character but I think pretty much anyone, even the most casual of casuals has at least a passing interest in this, it's just so much research. I do know some people have done this one before though I can't vouch for how well not being truly knowledgable on either character. 

8: Dante (Commedia) vs Adam (Paradise Lost)

I'm using this one as a general stand-in for a personal curiosity of mine which is fights with characters from classical theological sources like Mythology and so on. These are super interesting, the ways feats are presented and the types of powers characters have tend to be completely unlike modern matchups, something you can kinda feel already just by debating characters from several decades apart. It feels like it expands the debating capabilities to try and scale characters from times like this and this matchup in particular would be really good. That said, these works tend to be long and hard to actually comprehend.

7: Darth Vader vs Dark Samus

So I really like Vader and I really like Metroid and I think this would be a really awesome and surprisingly even fight. The two both have this long list of powers but are still roughly in the same range of power and reach the same range of hax. That said Star Wars is this absolutely massive franchise that I don't really wanna do all the research for, especially with Legends canon which is the actual fair one for this.

6: Ahsoka Tano vs Cure Moonlight

Second verse, same as the first. This seems like a really cool thematic even fight that would be awesome to see, in fact its probably more even since the two don't have as many powers as the above, but Star Wars is a massive franchise I don't wanna do all the research for. However this one also has Pretty Cure which, don't get me wrong I love, would be way harder to research than Metroid, it's way longer and the scaling is way more jank.

5: Avengers vs Justice League

On some level I think everyone wants to see Premier Marvel Superhero Team vs Premier DC Superhero Team but these are like the two largest franchises in history and these are the characters with the most content in them. It also might be one-sided. If you use the Founding Members, the JLA have more heavy-hitters than the Avengers, and if you use the full roster where both have even conservatively dozens of members, the JLA has these cosmic members like Pandora, Swamp Thing, and Phantom Stranger that afaik the Avengers don't have equivalents. That said it'd be really cool to see. I'm using this as a general "Marvel vs DC" thing. I might do matchups with longer running Marvel and DC characters but not this one. 

4: Nekron vs Hades

I love DC and Saint Seiya, they are among my favorite series of all. But they both require a metric ton of research. Nekron is a Lantern villain which is not a part of DC I know really well and Hades is a villain you need to research at least most of the Saint Seiya series to understand. On the other hand this fight would be absolutely amazing, it's two embodiments of death with insanely overpowered cosmic powers represented by the night with their own armies of undead dark warrior counterparts of once heroes. This is the limit of what I "might" do on this list

3: Skeletor vs Lord Zedd

So these two magic-wielding hax skeleton lords of evil have unusual stats but which happen to be exactly in the same range as each other would be an amazing fight. Both have their own mechs and armies of relatively even stats. Both have over the top personalities that would clash great and are used to fighting somewhat flamboyant heroes. This matchup would be great. The only problem? Skeletor is the main villain of a large franchise with mildly confusing continuity including a 130 episode series, a 93 episode series, and a 65 episode series. Conversely Lord Zedd is a villain that scales pretty far up in a 29-season series approaching 1,000 episodes not including all the supplementary material. I'd love to see it but I'm not going through all that.

2: Sadako vs Ai Enma

This match would be absolutely amazing, two Onryo of similar power and hax, that being insanely overpowered hax for their tier, the arguably most famous of Japanese horror villains vs the extremely dark Anti-Hero of Nakayoshi magazine, thematic to an extreme, intellectually stimulating, emotionally visceral, with its own atmosphere that pervades even just thinking of the match. However Ring is a big franchise with a lot to research plus connects to Grudge and Bunshinsaba, their own significant film franchises. While none of the Hell Girl series are that long, she's got like 10 different series, plus a few films. So both are signifigant research, however definitely more doable then some of the earlier entries. But the kicker is that both are scary and I am pretty easy to scare. I don't think I could research something scary that well, especially as long as this.

1: Superman (Composite) vs Cthulhu (Composite)

This fight is the apex of "I want to see this but I don't want to research this." This is a fight that has massive thematic applications, and not only that but like really strong historical routes with Superman and Cthulhu both being these opposed archetypal symbols that represented very important movements and trains of thought that are important to this day. They are charaters that are almost universally recognized and draw massive appeal. Despite this their composites are two of the strongest fictional characters to exist, and imo can be compared pretty fairly.

On the other hand I'm not even sure this fight is technically possible for one person to research alone and if it was it would definitely take many years. Superman has arguably the second most amount of content of any character only after Batman, decades upon decades of non-stop comics and relevant scaling to every other character in the single most content-large multimedia franchise to have been created save companies that subsume it. Conversely Cthulhu has himself an insane amount of content, but its far more diffused to the point that I'm not even sure its possible to track down every reference to Cthulhu let alone scale him to all the seemingly endless series he must scale too. This fight is maybe impossible to do.

Who was stronger, Sailor Saturn or Super Sailor Moon (Infinity Arc)

The Sailor Moon Fandom isn't, as a rule, super into vs debating. There's a bit of it much in the way there is for most series with supernatural powers, but if you ask the average moonie their opinion on most potential SM battles, if it's not obvious, there isn't much in the way of intensive opinions. I can pretty safetly say I know about everyone major who scales SM if only because there aren't that many. The only SM vs topic that really drums up interest is strongest guardian senshi. However I'm old enough to remember back in the earlier days of the SM Fandom, back in the 90s there was another matchup that was controversial. As of the third arc it was who was stronger between the main character Sailor Moon (who had attained a greater "Super" Form), or the legendary Sailor Saturn. 

This matchup was quite controversial in part because the two are thematically opposed in the third arc; the Messiah of Light and the Messiah of Darkness, and because in general it's somewhat hard to tell who was stronger in the arc itself, there's no clear comparison. There's a bunch of other reasons the two are opposed, the two are introduced formally in the same act, both have powers related to healing and life, the talismans glowed together to awaken both even calling it the same glow, and even the Death-Busters, enemies of the arc were unsure of who was the true threat. I have read the SM manga many times and I think I have come to enough of an understanding of the series to really dissect this matchup.

I'm going to quickly explain each character, than give each the arguments for each character (and possible counter-arguments) before giving my opinion. Because spoilers, I think you can make an argument for either side, and it's moreso which side's arguments you find more compelling. Also this is specifically the characters as of the final act of the third arc of the manga. Super Sailor Moon gets a degree stronger within the third arc and this is specifically her strongest. This is manga-canon as the anime has wholly different scaling due to having basically a totally different plot. Finally this is about who has more raw power, not who'd win necessarily. Both characters have a fair degree of magical hax powers, but this is a question of who had more raw stellar energy. 

Protected by the planet of destruction Saturn, Sailor Saturn is the soldier of ruin, of silence. She appears in the moment of doom with the purpose of bringing about the end of all life, resetting the path of life

She is awoken to signal the end of the age, and in the ancient Silver Millennium when her powers were used, the evolution of life had to completely begin again. For this accursed role she is eternally the unwelcome guest, feared by all.

However despite her role as Harbinger of Death, she was befriended by the young princess Chibiusa, who felt Hotaru's sadness and believed in their friendship despite knowing her role. 

The faith that the Moon Soldiers gave to her, allowed her to be reborn transcended of her ancient role like with the other Outer Senshi no longer needing to fight alone

Sailor Saturn's presence is immensely felt throughout the third arc, the very first words of the arc being a description by Pharaoh 90 of the incredible energy that would be revealed to be hers, and Sailor Saturn eventually being the one to defeat Pharaoh 90

While it was clear she was the strongest of the Sailor Senshi in their base forms.... could a super senshi be stronger?

Usagi Tsukino, otherwise known as Sailor Moon is the main character of the series. Her Sailor Crystal is the Legendary Silver Crystal, the source of all energy that gives dominion over the universe and the ultimate power of the universe

The Silver Crystal's power isn't a constant that maybe gets external buffs like the power of the other sailor crystals, the Silver Crystal's power is entirely dependent on the heart of it's user to work

This was done by the author so that Usagi's personal growth can mirror her power growth. As she becomes a stronger, more confident person with more control over her heart, her power can narratively grow as well. 

In the third arc it is introduced that when Neo-Queen Serenity (the future Sailor Moon) was younger, she used a Holy Grail, which would bestow her with powers whenever there was a crisis event

A few acts later, when the villain Cyprine is manipulating the Guardian and Outer Senshi to fighting each other with her powers, Sailor Moon says that even though they are fighting, their hearts are still as one and all their powers go to Sailor Moon transforming into Super Sailor Moon, all the Senshis' broochs transforming into hearts together to reflect that their hearts are the same

This is a power derived from their hearts' unity. This likely works because as stated in the first arc, the Silver Crystal's power depends on the condition of the heart. When the Guardian Senshis' souls are taken, the unity is broken and Usagi depowers to her base form.

Near the end of the Third Arc, Usagi draws a power from the Holy Grail she calls "the ultimate power of the Nine Sailor Senshi"

she uses this to plunge within Pharaoh 90, the power of the Holy Grail and Silver Crystal reviving Sailor Saturn, trusting her to save the world. Super Sailor Moon emerges from Pharaoh 90 at her strongest.

There Sailor Saturn speaks to her saying that because she released the power of the Holy Grail, the planet can be saved before sacrificing her to destroy Pharaoh 90 without destroying the world

After releasing the power of the Holy Grail, Super Sailor Moon is a Senshi with the mysterious holy power that stops crisis, but does she have the power to stop the greatest crisis of the Sailor Moon universe, the awakening of the Soldier of Silence, Sailor Saturn?

I'm going to go over the arguments for both that I can think off, along with any counterarguments I can think of. Both characters have about 5 arguments for them being stronger that I could think off, and these are them presented roughly in order of least to most compelling for me

Arguments for Sailor Saturn:

The Outer Senshi argument:

Sailor Saturn and Super Sailor Moon are introduced together in Act 33 as a parallel. However when the Outer Senshi are describing Sailor Saturn and how she is an unstoppable threat, their greatest mission be to keeping her from awakening, they are doing so immediatly after seeing Super Sailor Moon's first transformation to Super Sailor Moon herself.

which you can use to conclude they think Sailor Saturn is stronger than Super Sailor Moon.

There's two problems with this argument, a minor counter-arguments, and a major counter-argument.

The Outer Senshi may simply not know the depth of Super Sailor Moon's power. While they can sense energy, that doesn't mean they have a perfect ability to sense power levels especially as Super Sailor Moon gets stronger.

More importantly however is that the point of this scene is that the Outer Senshi think, and are correct in their assessment, that the Guardian Senshi are not "strong" enough to kill an innocent child to save the universe. A major theme of the third arc is childish idealism and deontology represented by Sailor Moon and the Guardian Senshi vs adult cynicism and utilitarianism represented by the Outer Senshi. Immediatly after the Outer Senshi directly say that they didn't involve the Guardians as allies because they knew they wouldn't be able to go through with what they see as needed to save the world.

As such the Outers may believe Super Sailor Moon has the capacity to stop Sailor Saturn, but not the will to do so before Saturn ends all life.

Usagi's worry Argument:

On a very similar vein, Super Sailor Moon worries briefly that when Sailor Saturn awakens, the world will end

However Usagi hasn't seen Sailor Saturn yet, and has no idea of her power. Usagi's a nervous unconfident person whose only information on Sailor Saturn was the Outer Senshis' prior explanation of her and the vague dreams of doom she's been having so her being nervous about it is quite understandable.

Powered Mistress 9 argument:

So this is the argument that vs battles wiki uses currently to say that Base Saturn is "far" stronger than Super Sailor Moon. Basically the argument is that Super Moon and Chibi-Moon aren't actually that that strong relatively speaking at the battle with Pharaoh 90 and Mistress 9 as they withstand their attacks of the Super Sailor Senshi, Mistress 9 seemingly pushing against it

This would obviously mean that Sailor Saturn is stronger as she was far stronger than Pharaoh 90 after absorbing Mistress 9.

However not only is this not the end of third arc Super Moon I'm talking about (she hasn't yet released the power of the Holy Grail), I don't think Mistress 9 and Pharaoh 90 had power comparable to the Super Senshi in this scene. This to me seems to be entirely a matter of their energy absorption, and even in this battle Mistress 9 still thinks the energy of the Senshi is amazing and is happy to absorb it

Earlier in the arc, Usagi just transforming into Super Sailor Moon for the first time was over 10,000 times stronger than the Taioron Crystal at it's maximum.

While it's true Mistress 9 and Pharaoh 90 get stronger from Mistress 9 consuming the Silver Crystal, they describe the power as thousands of times stronger than a human soul, stronger than the current Taioron Crystal by a wide margin

with human souls being stated to be unable to compare to the light power of Base Sailor Moon's power constantly stated to be near the modern dying out Taioron Crystal's power

while Mistress 9 could be lowballing their power increase, it seems that:

Super Sailor Moon's Initial Transformation>Tens of Thousands x>Peak Taioron Crystal

Powered up Mistress>Thousands x>Human Souls

Dying out Taioron Crystal far > Human Souls

suggesting to me that even with her new power Mistress 9 should at best be like an order of magnitude weaker than Super Sailor Moon's energy blast. The other option is you could say the Henshin just releases a relatively large energy compared to normal attacks, as in the first arc transformation is called the strongest and most holy of the Senshis' powers

However given the initial Super Sailor Moon scene emphasized Super Sailor Moon was tanking her own transformation energy, I find it hard to believe that this energy is far stronger, if at all, than her own attacks

So personally I don't think that Mistress 9 and Pharaoh 90 really scale to Super Sailor Moon at all, I think they were just absorbing their energy as Usagi says

Lifting Pharaoh 90 Argument:

Now we're getting to what I consider the good Saturn arguments. At one point of their battle, Sailor Saturn's power lifts Pharaoh 90 off the ground sending him back to the Tau Nebula

This is relevant as earlier this act, Super Sailor Moon had released the power of the Holy Grail and charged Pharaoh 90 and while she succeeds in awakening Sailor Saturn, her power only somewhat seems to disturb Pharaoh 90's form

There's a rather simplified argument, the intuitive argument, for Saturn that basically goes "Sailor Saturn beat Pharaoh 90 who Super Sailor Moon" couldn't beat and I think this is the best version of the intuitive argument. Whiel earlier Super Sailor Moon hadn't released the power of the Holy Grail, and so wasn't yet at her peak, this is post-release Super Sailor Moon who should be at her peak in the third arc therefore.

The more general reason I don't agree with the intuitive argument is it seems even in the earier part of the fight Super Sailor Moon had more power than Pharaoh 90, she just couldn't get past his energy absorption. Conversely, Sailor Saturn's negative aura was canceling out Pharaoh 90, so it's less like Sailor Saturn was more powerful than Super Sailor Moon, but could get past a resistance that Super Sailor Moon couldn't. However if you take the argument that Holy Grail Super Sailor Moon actually did mildly get past Pharaoh 90's absorption, than the fact that she didn't do substantial damage to Pharaoh 90, while Saturn could do substantial damage would suggest that Saturn was stronger. 

I'm not sure about this argument but I do think it's a viable argument. It depends whether you think of Pharaoh 90's energy assimilation as reducing damage from energy by X amount by assimilating X damage or it works by just assimilating all energy save for negative energy. If you think it reduces the energy he is impacted by X amount, then Super Sailor Moon mildly disrupting his form suggests she got slightly over X amount while Saturn easily raising him into the sky suggests she got far above X amount. Conversely you could also look at the scan and thinks it's just a visual effect to represent Super Sailor Moon's shining form entering Pharaoh 90, and disappearing within.

The Energy Surpression Argument:

After Mistress 9 eats the Silver Crystal and starts powering up, Hotaru who has been reduced to just a soul, to protect her precious friend Chibiusa's soul and her Silver Crystal surpresses the power of the Silver Crystal.

This was a power that was considered a substantial power increase to Mistress 9 and Pharaoh 90...

This is an insane feat of power for Hotaru, especially as she hadn't yet awoken as a Senshi. 

Pharaoh 90 and Mistress 9 compare favorably in power compared to Base Sailor Moon, even full power Sailor Moon as of the third arc, meaning that Ghost Hotaru>Third Arc Base Sailor Moon. This is supported by the fact that the Omega Area, the energy of the area the Death-Busters were pursueing since the first words of the arc is revealed to Pharaoh 90's horror to have been the energy of Sailor Saturn sleeping, Hotaru's energy.

This doesn't necessarily mean that Sailor Saturn>Super Sailor Moon but it does suggest that for Super Sailor Moon to be stronger, that the Super transformation has to be stronger than the Base transformation.

There's no direct comparison between the two transformations, but while the Super transformation makes one 10,000x times stronger the Base Transformation turned normal humans into Sailor Senshi, the Cosmic Guardians who protect the planets, can destroy dimensions, and fight people who can create storms across nations or drain them of energy

While after awakening as a Senshi, the Senshi do get stronger and show superhuman feats even in civilian form after awakening, Hotaru at this point has not awoken, and her energy is already on the very upper end of the Third Arc. If this is accepted I think the very fair conclusion is that Sailor Saturn would probably be stronger than Super Sailor Moon just on the basis that the Base Henshin seems far more substantial than even the Super Henshin.

That said, you could argue that Hotaru being a ghost or it being her body that Mistress 9 was possessing was why she could surpress the energy and that Pharaoh 90 was really sensing the energy of the Saturn that was within Hotaru, her higher self

After all normal human souls are strong enough that thousands of them together would apparently have a power that would substantially power up Mistress 9, and the Death-Busters target the souls of somewhere in the range of dozens to hundreds of souls at once for Pharaoh 90 and according to Tellu the souls of Senshi have more energy than normal people

Arguments for Super Sailor Moon:

The Super Upgrade Argument:

When Super Sailor Moon emerges from Pharaoh 90, her power upgrades 7 Base Sailor Senshi to Super forms, showing the depth of her power growth over the third arc

The argument goes that in the Dream Arc Hotaru only empowered 4 Senshi to turn into their super forms, herself included, and that she needed the Holy Grail and Saturn Crystals to do so

While kind of a clever argument, the major problem with it in my opinion is that Hotaru never actually says or is shown to need the Saturn Crystal or Holy Grail to change the Senshi to their super forms,  she shows the Saturn Crystal as a sign that they Outer Sensi had been reborn without the duties and solitude of their past lives by their Princess

and uses the Holy Grail to show an image that their Prince and Princess were in danger

Pharaoh 90 Impression Argument:

So this argument is based on the fact that Pharaoh 90 seemed massively more impressed and frightened by Super Sailor Moon's power than Sailor Saturn's. When Super Sailor Moon just transformed Pharaoh 90 was terrified and proclaimed it like the light of Heaven

Pharaoh 90 doesn't seem nearly as scared when Sailor Saturn appears not commenting at all at first, only starting to fear when Sailor Saturn starts using durability ignoring powers on him like paralyzing him with her glaive.

The level of impressed a character seems is kind of subjective and while I kinda agree that Pharaoh 90 seemed more afraid of Super Sailor Moon, it's not really a fair comparison as between the two points Pharaoh 90 had grown stronger from Mistress 9 giving him some of the energy of the Silver Crystal and later from assimilating Mistress 9 instantly breaking the barrier that was containing him until that point

Plus from Pharaoh 90's point of view, he had just beaten the holders of stellar protection, the Sailor Senshi, who had been one of the only two things that could threaten his plans, including the Super Senshi he was so threatened by initially, what does the appearence of one more Super Sailor Senshi mean to him?

The Talisman Glow Argument:

It's a recurring point in the third arc that the Three Talismans will resonate together, signaling the coming of only one of two people; Super Sailor Moon or Sailor Saturn. 

After Super Sailor Moon's first henshin, however there's an odd statement by Sailor Pluto suggesting that the Talismans glowed more than they had ever done

the argument are the three talismans are the three items whose glow illuminate the path to ruin, and that as they glowed for Super Sailor Moon more than they did for Sailor Saturn, that she is a greater response to a threat than Sailor Saturn.

While I think you could argue this, the major problem is that there's not really enough known about the Talismans. Another interpretation for the Talisman's glow is that the Talismans, representing the Outers' hearts, were showing their approval of Sailor Moon and her ideals. The point of the scene is that the Outer were surprised that their hearts were as one with Usagi's, and that their Talismans would give her power. They take the Talismans shining in resonance for Usagi as the talismans' sign to tell Usagi the truth

Like on a meta level as far as I understand the purpose of the Outer Senshi being surprised by the shine of their Talismans, is a reflection of their own surprise in the amount of faith they have in the silly childish ideals of Usagi. 

The Saturn Hax Argument:

So much like with Usagi, there's an argument that could be made that Hotaru isn't actually much stronger than Pharaoh 90 in raw power. Like the end of the third arc is usually phrased "Sailor Saturn stomps Pharaoh 90" and she does absolutely, and it's cool and hilarious that sick little girl suddenly goes "I am the Angel of Death, the agony in the moment before death is so beautiful" but Pharaoh 90 actually lasts a long time. After Sailor Saturn starts using her negative aura, an energy that paralyzes Pharaoh 90 and which he can't absorb, he doesn't die, and in fact survives signifigantly into the next chapter

Pharaoh 90 does say she has a large negative aura, but that doesn't necessarily mean he thinks her energy is greater then his, or it could be that he's surprised a specifically negative aura could be so large. 

Like for comparison this is the death of the first arc final villain Metaria when faced with a power bigger than hers

and this is the death of the second arc final villain Death Phantom when confronted with a power bigger then his

It's not like Saturn is the messing around type, and later she literally sacrifices herself to kill Pharaoh 90, yelling at Pluto to hurry and seal away her and Pharaoh 90 in another dimension, strongly suggesting he's was a legitimate threat to her at that point on some level and that she couldn't just raw overpower him and make him disappear

So this is I think a pretty good argument for Super Sailor Moon. To argue it you really need to argue a combination of points. It's strongly implied that Saturn has a strong sense of destiny and that she is compelled by destiny to use the power of the Glaive when she is awoken, for that is the purpose for which she was awoken for.

It's possible she felt compelled as her destiny to lower the Glaive, and thus she sealed herself off and Pharaoh 90 away purely to spare her beloved friend Chibiusa and to serve her princess who believed in her, rather than any threat Pharaoh 90 posed to her. 

The bigger question is why didn't Sailor Saturn quickly kill Pharaoh 90, and there's a few answers you could try; that she was using that time to explain to the other Senshi, that she was sadistically drawing out the moment of Pharaoh 90's death for she calls that moment beautiful, or she was waiting for Super Sailor Moon to emerge from Pharaoh 90.

Darkness Barrier Argument:

So during the fourth arc, Usagi and Chibiusa are able to change into a different form of Super Sailor Moon and Super Sailor Chibi-Moon despite the Outer Senshi being away meaning there was no unity of hearts between the Senshi, from the Holy Grail due to the "need" too

This actually makes sense as in the prior arc Sailor Moon released the power of the Holy Grail, which is stated would bestow Neo-Queen Serenity's younger self (Sailor Moon) power in times of crisis. However this form is not as strong as she was at the end of the third arc which had the unity of hearts between the Senshi, and the released Holy Grail's power. This can also be seen in the fact that the Guardian Senshi had to unlock their super forms while at the end of the Third Arc, Super Sailor Moon simply granted the other senshi their super forms.

So the reason this is particularly relevant is during the fourth arc there's a darkness barrier over the Earth and Moon caused by Nehelenia, keeping the Senshi from transforming until they overpowered it with their Super Forms. 

It is implied even Hotaru would not have been able to transform normally and that the transformation of the Outer Senshi into their Super Forms so they could help their princess included her

The obvious implication being a Super Sailor Moon weaker than the one in Arc 3 could transform through the Darkness Barrier while Sailor Saturn could not. 

The first part is pretty solid and hard to argue, Super Sailor Moon at the start of Arc 4 is pretty solidly not as strong as end of Arc 3 Super Sailor Moon. To argue this point you'd have to argue that it's not necessarily the case that Hotaru couldn't transform or that she was weaker than she was in the third arc.

So who was stronger?

I think you could make a pretty fair argument for either to be stronger. To be honest I've gone kinda back on this one for a while, it's one of the most complex intra-universal SM vs matches. 

If I was trying to argue for Saturn I'd probably say something to the effect of "Hotaru arguably has several feats on the upper end of the Third Arc in just her civilian form (Pharaoh 90 calling her energy similar to that of the Taioron Crystal, surpressing Mistress 9's power, granting 4 Senshi super forms), she is continually hyped up over the course of the Third Arc, ending up overpowering the final villain at his strongest after he arguably withstood Super Sailor Moon's power with signifigantly less damage"

If I was trying to argue for Super Sailor Moon, I'm probably say something like "Usagi's energy has the best feats in the third arc transforming 7 Senshi and being 10,000x than the Taioran Crystal which Pharaoh 90 arguably compared Sailor Saturn too. Sailor Saturn relied primarily on hax to kill Pharaoh 90 and even then took signifigantly longer to kill him than you'd think if she was as strong as Super Sailor Moon. It's implied as well that she couldn't transform under the darkness barrier when a weaker form of Super Sailor Moon was able too."

I say all this to say that what I'm saying here is my current opinion, I think you could make a very good argument for the opposing view and I could change my mind on this case. That said currently I think that Super Sailor Moon had more raw energy than Sailor Saturn at the end of the third arc. That's not to say I think she'd win a fight, I think Saturn would win actually win a fight due to how hax she is. However it seems like it'd be harder to me to argue the points that are in SM's favor than the points in Saturn's favor. 

Part of it is that there isn't really an argument for Sailor Saturn to be a little bit stronger than Super Sailor Moon. You can argue Super Sailor Moon is much stronger than Sailor Saturn or a little bit stronger but if you're going to argue for Saturn all her points suggest she has to be way stronger. If you do that you have to argue either she was REALLY holding back against Pharaoh 90 for some reason or that Pharaoh 90 got WAY stronger, like not just 10,000x stronger, not just 10,000x + whatever the difference is between dying out Taioron Crystal and Peak Taioran Crystal, but whatever else the amount is between Saturn and Super Sailor Moon. Considering Saturn's character and the fact that the strongest person Pharaoh 90 would have assimilated energy from IS Super Sailor Moon neither of those seem very realistic scenarios to me. 

So as of right now I think that Super Sailor Moon was stronger, maybe not be any kind of large margin but I think she probably outstripped Pharaoh 90's raw power by a greater degree than Base Sailor Saturn did. I understand if you disagree, I think you can make a fairly convincing argument for either side, that's just how it seems to me. 

Ultimately, I think some level of ambiguity is intended in Naoko's writing, both Sailor Moon and Sailor Saturn's powers are supposed to be ambigious, especially the latter. Sailor Moon's power is supposed to represent the ability of a person to show you a different them, that a normal flawed person might be transformed by the power of love into a hero of justice. Sailor Saturn's power is contrast represents the seemingly inevitable cycle of death and life/rebirth, and how even horrific tragedy like the broken-ness of Hotaru's life in the Mugen Arc can be reborn in hope, a soldier born to kill everyone ending up saving everyone due to a young girl's belief in her friend. Just as these strange archetypes play out in our lives, so too are their powers the strangest of the Sailor Senshis' powers. These two concepts play out in the climax of the third arc, in Saturn's words to Moon before her sacrifice, praise that Saturn is the one that one brings about death for the sake of rebirth, but that after every death there is hope and that Sailor Moon is the one who brings it about. In this I think Naoko places the individual ennobled by the power of love central to that mysterious process of death and rebirth, and suggests that Sailor Moon was the stronger of the two.