So I researched DC a lot for my Lucifer Morningstar blog, and I wanted to quickly present what I believe is roughly how DC Comics internal tiers look. This isn't going to be placing all or even all the important characters, this is just an overview of what the tier categories are and what feats I use to scale them power and speed-wise in case you wanted to quickly reference roughly how strong DC Characters are, or at least my opinion.
Due to the nature of DC Comics as a franchise running many decades and with a large variety of writers some of these positions are a bit fluid but while a character in high tier 3 might depending on the day evenly fight a character in low tier 3 or in low tier 2, they will never evenly fight a character in high tier 2. I've arranged this in such a way that characters at the borders of the two tiers might be presented as being relatively even and that characters in the same tier might be presented as relatively even but not characters clearly in different tiers. Usually. Also this is tierings of the characters in stats. Via hax or technology some characters can fight other characters much stronger than them, but that should be fairly obvious.
DC Metahumans are officially categorized in three rankings: Nuisance-Level, where their powers aren't especially notable, Beta level for representing significant threat, and Alpha-Level for being one of the biggest dangers to a planet. DC Comics' most wonky scaling comes from the Beta Metahumans who are sometimes portrayed as relative to the DC Street tiers, and sometimes portrayed as relative to the more cosmic tier fighters so I would not scale from them down or up to avoid contradictions
Low Tier 5: Microscopic Tier: DC has several characters that can shrink themselves down even enough to enter the subatomic world of the microverse and obviously while there, they are insignificant stat wise compared to macroscopic characters.
Mid Tier 5: Civilian Tier: This is the tier for characters who are generally unnamed regular civilians. These actually weirdly do have feats, though I haven't seen enough feats for them to tell what would be abnormal.
High Tier 5: Criminal/Police Tier: This is the tier for armed criminals, police, and generally other people you'd expect to be stronger than normal and includes a lot of civilian supporting cast for superheroes who often have unrealistic feats of power such as cracking stone with their strikes or evading the attacks from wild animals. I would put Lois Lane here as she is normally, given Lois is a Black Belt who has some knowledge of Torquasm Vo and has defeated several criminals. I would also put people like Alfred or Commissioner Gordan here, though from what I hear they might actually be higher and mildly scale to Batman and his rogue's gallery.
Low Tier 4: Low Vigilante Tier: This is the tier for elite types of common enemies, usually used as fodder to demonstrate other characters prowess such as League of Shadow assassins, average Amazons, Atlanteans, or Parademons. This is also where lower tier vigilante type characters, more "joke-y" type characters tend to be, as well as most vigilantes from alternate realities that are meant to be more "realistic." This tier tends to be wall level with feats like regular Amazons being able to roll giant boulders or being able to lift 10 tons (more than an elephant), Atlanteans being able to tank the pressure at the bottom of the ocean (the two having waged war evenly against each other before), no-name Parademons bringing down planes, Arm-Fall-Off-Boy (a character respected from the Justice League for being too weak) withstanding this explosion without much damage, and Big Atomic Lantern Boy of the Super Young Team (a team whose whole purpose is to show the commodification of superheroes with a team of underpowered children fighting non-threats), destroying a large robot in one-shot. From other universes that are meant to be more "realistic" this is the power of the top tier vigilantes such as Ozymandias can shatter stone violently, and the Nolan-verse Batman numerous times easily withstanding explosions. Speedwise this tier is generally fast enough to blitz normal humans and can often bullet-time with great difficulty. Ozymandias can catch bullets, Most Excellent Superbat of the Super Young Team dodged bullets, the joke villain the Condiment King is able to react to and avoid gunfire and the Amazons are able to fight against modern militaries despite using pre-gunfire weaponry.
Mid Tier 4: Mid Vigilante Tier: This is the tier for roughly the mid-level street tiers who aren't generally depicted as relative to metahuman threats but are a significant threat to the top tier vigilante type characters. I think most mid range Batman villains like Harley Quinn or Two-Face as well as most vigilante type heroes like The Question or Huntress would be here. I think all the Robins would be here during their tenure as Robin, though Dick at least reaches High Tier 4 as Nightwing, can't comment on if the others do. Characters at this tier should scale to lower end building range. They are able to somewhat fight characters like Batman and have numerous feats including Tim Drake Robin was able to survive this large warehouse explosion, Two-Face surviving an explosion of this size, and Harley Quinn is strongly suggested to be the same as her animated version who scales to the DCAU Joker that survived being smashed with a golden bell. These characters are generally in the supersonic to hypersonic range with feats like casually bullet-timing being common. Cassandra Cain as a child was able to dodge a bullet inches from her face calced at mach 16, and while Cassie is a High Vigilante Tier, this was her as a child. They're also just generally not depicted as an order of magnitude slower than High Vigilante tier characters.
High Tier 4: High Vigilante Tier/Lower Beta Metahuman Tier: This is the tier for the top tier "normal" fighters in the DC Universe like Batman or Lady Shiva, as well as characters presented as powerful physical threats to them like Killer Croc or Bane. This is the tier for the lower bound of the Beta Metahumans which are generally portrayed as fighting relatively comparable to the top end normal humans. Because of this, a lot of of the characters in this tier don't scale to each other as the "assorted metahumans tier." The strongest humans in this tier are building level. Batman and Deathstroke in the New 52 when both were inexperienced withstood a school explosion and Batman has numerous other building level feats including surviving numerous building explosions and holding up the side of a temple. Deathstroke has a pretty well known feat of blowing up a helicopter scaled to upper multi-city block level to low town level. Gunfire withstood Deathstroke's attack so the argument generally goes that everyone in Tier 4 should scale too,. Hawkman on a similar tier to Deathstroke has his own high MCB to kiloton level feats. How this scales backwards is debatable but I'm really hesitant to scale Beta Metahumans backwards or upwards to avoid ridiculous scaling of DC Street tiers to cosmics. Speedwise this tier varies from hypersonic to massively hypersonic, mostly lightning-timing. Ravager dodged close range lightning blasts from Static, explicitly stated to be fast as lightning, Batgirl Stephanie Brown has avoided lightning from Livewire, and Batgirl Cassandra Cain dodged lightning from point blank.
Low Tier 3: Upper Beta Metahuman Tier/Lower Alpha Metahuman Tier: This is the minimum tier for Alpha Metahumans, characters who are threats on a planetary scale, who can destroy parts of a planet up to a whole planet. Beta Metahumans are sometimes treated as relative to Alpha Metahumans so this is also sort of the upper bound for Beta Metahumans. This is the tier I think Royal Atlanteans are in, though some people think they legit scale to the upper end characters in which case they would be somewhere higher in Tier 3. This would be the tier for General Kryptonians including the New 52 Superman early, as well as most alternate Earth versions of Kryptonians which tend to get up to at least here which then scales to the heavy hitters of most Earths. Aquaman was able to catch a blow that could sink the continent of Atlantis. Superman in the early New 52 was able to bear the weight of the world underground for give days and in Post-Crisis its stated Teenage Kryptonians can crack the planet in half in a teenage fit. FTL Planetary seems to be the general level of Kryptonians under Yellow Sunlight. This also tends to be the range Kryptonians in other universes tend to get too, as well as other Kryptonian level entities. In the DCEU, Superman overpowered a world engine capable of terraforming the Earth and fought Doomsday evenly, the original Doomsday having shattered Krypton's Moon. In the DCAU Green Lantern is held on trial for the destruction of a planet. All-Star Superman lifted 200 quintillion tons in one hand stated he could crack a planet in half. Red Son Superman survived a bomb from Brainiac with radius of 15 million miles. Reeve Superman moved the Moon quickly to create an eclipse. In terms of speed most of these characters scale somewhere from lightning timer to light timer or lower end FTL. Mera avoids lightning at close range explicitly with speed. Early New 52 Superman flew from Pluto to Earth in seconds. The Ray travels as light, explicitly at the speed of light. DCAU Superman scales to Wonder Woman who blocked close range light-blasts from Star Sapphire. Red Son Superman brought Brainiac's bomb past seemingly Jupiter in less than a minute. Reeve Superman circled the Earth at over 3 times the speed of light. DCEU Flash explicitly moves faster than light, with Superman being able to move somewhat relative if sluggish, and scales to his own heat vision which is explicitly lightspeed.
Mid Tier 3: Mid Alpha Metahuman Tier: Green Lanterns are one of the most common basis for a threat compared on the cosmic scale given their role as inter-galactic peace officers. This is the tier that Lanterns in general fit in. This is also the tier that most Kryptonian Fighters are including the New 52 Superman near the End of the New 52 and Post-Crisis Superman until he learned to release his mental blocks. Consequently this is the level of the stronger villains in the Late New 52 and the stronger villains for the majority of Post-Crisis. I would also say this is where the strongest teenage superheroes of the Earth like Starfire or Supergirl would be during the Post-Crisis period. Arisa, a relative low tier Green Lantern could withstand a black hole and two Green Lanterns Kol and Isamot were able to withstand a nova. John Stewart's ring's auto-shield protected him from a supernova, and given it is an auto shield this could very likely scale. An exhausted weakened Lightray with the last of his energies was able to create a giant star, a feat that would likely take slightly over the energy of a supernova. While Lightray is strong, he's mostly a speedster and plenty of characters should be able to scale powerwise to a Lightray that weakened. Similar Speed Force users are able to use relativity to do things like hit with the force of a white dwarf star yet Wonder Woman was able to withstand 3 infinite mass punches without much damage. Wonder Woman is higher, but this is not Wonder Woman having attained godhood, and anyone who does more damage may be able to scale to this. Similarly a Superman heavily weakened by Red Sunlight survived a supernova 50 times the power of the Keplar Explosion and a Superman early in Post-Crisis withstood a sun-eater implosion Superman is higher, but more characters would scale to this early or weakened Superman. In the New 52 continuity which is the main one without 10 years of experience, near the end Superman withstood a black hole bigger than the Earth calced at ~2.5 supernova. There are more feats as well but generally speaking the characters in this tier are supernova tier. Characters at this tier scale to numerous feats of MFTL speeds trillions to quadrillions of times the speed of light. Most notably Lanterns have to consistently travel back and forth to Oa at the center of the universe and patrol their entire space sector which divides the universe into 3600 sections. This would be trillions to quadrillions of times the speed of light under any reasonable timeframe. In Post-Crisis Green Lanterns have traveled across the universe in 10 hours, which, with the size of the DC Universe, gave a speed calc of over 87 quadrillion times the speed of light. In New 52 Superman returned from the edge of the universe in 60 days, calced to 400 trillion times the speed of light. In Post-Crisis Supergirl and Superboy took Superboy Prime to the Source Wall at the edge of the universe quickly which would similarly require speeds trillions to quadrillions of times the speed of light.
High Tier 3: High Alpha Metahuman Tier: This is the tier for the Mid Tier Lantern who are considered notably stronger than most Lanterns as well as Post-Crisis Superman after releasing his mental block and Superboy during the Pre-Crisis period. Because of this, this tier also includes most Pre-Crisis physical threats and physical threats near the end of Post-Crisis such as Sun-Eaters. I think this would include the four heroes confirmed in the Wonder Woman Guide to be the physically strongest of Earth: Superman, Wonder Woman, Shazam, and Martian Manhunter, their villains who are physically relative, and the higher tier physical threats of the Post-Crisis Era in general such as Ares or Larfleeze. Post-Crisis Superman during Our Worlds at War was able to withstand enough anti-sunlight to vaporize half a galaxy. Ares grows to the size of the Promethean Giants whose hands span solar systems. Green Lantern Frodo grew to the size of a galaxy. Pre-Crisis Superboy towed all the planets of a galaxy and was stated to be able to destroy half a galaxy without raising a sweat. Sun-Eaters are a general species that are a massive threat in the Post-Crisis universe stated to be capable to consume whole galaxies repeatedly yet in the Pre-Crisis universe Mongul can keep one as a weapon/pet and the Legion of Superheroes, a group of teen heroes deal with the Sun-Eaters. This tier generally can reach the time barrier but not the Speed Force barrier in terms of speed. Wonder Woman nearing the late Post-Crisis period has a speed feat of stopping pieces of the shattered god from reaching him calced as high as 315 quintillion c. Superman near the end of Post-Crisis during Final Crisis has a feat of stopping reality-blitzing missiles calced at 3.15 sextillion c. Both feats didn't seem to break the time barrier and should scale to characters that can break the time barrier.
Low Tier 2: Elemental/Dimension Lord Tier. This is the tier for characters who can control the physical elements forces of a universe, or simply is the lord/consciousness of a universe themselves. This is also the tier of the high tier characters in the Pre-Crisis/Rebirth Universe such as Superman and Validus and the general high tier of the physical threats such as Brainiac's Planet-Eater. These characters do show up in the Post-Crisis period but generally as amped versions of the Heroes or as Crisis-Scale threats such as Sundipped Superman, Godwave Wonder Woman, Imperiex Prime, Brainiac 13, and Superboy Prime. Characters at this tier scale to a large number of universal feats such as Pre-Crisis Superman withstanding the Big Bang, Brainiac 13 battling Imperiex Prime across time ripping the timeline to shreds. Superboy Prime believed he would withstand the Big Bang, Green Lantern Mogo, the living planet, in Rebirth was able to light up a dying lightless universe. The Pre-Crisis villain Maaldor turned into an evil living universe threatening all other dimensions by growing and absorbing. Firestorm is a nuclear powered hero who can recreate the Big Bang. Captain Atom is a quantum powered hero who can create new universes. Characters with strong enough connection to the speedforce can use it to destroy the universe. Many of these are characters are just flat out infinite in speed but the ones that are finite in speed if they can get close to breaking the Speed Force wall should scale to Wally West outracing instantaneous teleportation, famously calced at over 23 tredecillion times the speed of light. Wally was amped doing so but he was actively trying to avoid running into the speed force at the time, and any character that can reach the barrier including most Speed Force users should be able to reach this value. Characters in this tier are universal to low multiversal.
Mid Tier 2: Low Godsphere/Orrery of World Tier: This is the tier for characters who are a threat to the bleed and the Orrery of Worlds in the multiverse, and/or have significant power in the Sphere of the Gods. This is the tier for most of the most powerful Heroes of Earth normally, whose powers were used in the Pre-Crisis era as something of a deus ex machina such as the usual power of Pre-Crisis Dr. Fate and the Spectre. Most "normal" Gods, Angels, or Demons in their own domains should be at least this strong, though in the material universe there is evidence that their power is limited. I also think the Emotional Entities without a host body, in their true form, the emotions of people across the multiverse would individually be here, and that general Lords of Order and Chaos would be here. Individual souls in DC Comics are able to create their own universes to be their own afterlives and Godsphere entities casually rule over numerous of them. They're also cosmically gigantic, to the point that all mortal universes are contained in the Bubbles of New Genesis. As such characters in this tier are Low Multiverse level.
High Tier 2: High Godphere Tier/Low Fifth World Tier: This is the tier of the strongest entities from the Godsphere capable of destroying whole realms of the Godsphere, infinite conceptual realms, or even greater the whole Godsphere (similar to how people on Earth could destroy Earth), including Darkseid and Highfather, Lords of Apokolips and New Genesis respectively, the strongest gods of Skyland Zeus, Jove, and Odin, Hecate the goddess of magic, and the Life and Anti-Life entities. This is also where the Lords of Order or the Lords of Chaos collectively would be collectively at least, though Nabu and Mordru the strongest of each do have scaling suggesting they might be higher. This is also where the lower end tier for characters from the Metafictional Fifth Dimension like Imps and Djinn along with general Monitors from Nil would be. Metron stated that New Gods Kalibak and Orion fighting would destroy half of Apokolips. Satanus the Demon remade all of Hell in his image instantly upon defeating the prior ruler Neron. COIE Anti-Monitor threatened to keep the positive matter multiverse from every existing. Asmodel-Spectre froze all of Hell and Neron. The Lords of Order collectively can destroy the Godsphere. The Lords of Order and Chaos respect Darkseid's powers who threatened "everything." Limbo enveloping the Sphere of the Gods is small in the Monitor Sphere.
Low Tier 1: High Fifth World Tier/Brothers Tier: This is the tier for characters that are threats to all of Creation including the strongest of DC's "metafictional" characters such as Mister Mxyzptlk and Bat-Mite, as well as Cosmic Armor Superman and Mandrakk. This is also the tier for the Brothers Three; Alpheus, Mar Novu and Mobius, the entities from the Sixth World. This would then consequently be the Tier for the Connective and Crisis energies individually at least if you think they are comparable, as the Dimensional Superstructure includes the Sixth World Dimension. Mxy and Bat-Mite are the strongest two of the 5D Imps, with Mxy threatening to unimagine the DC multiverse, erasing them down to sketches stopped by Bat-Mite. Mandrakk was eating the story of all creation before being stopped by the Thought Robot. The three brothers; Alphaeus, Mar Novu, and Mobius wrote all the rules of reality from the highest plane.
Mid Tier 1: Hands Tier: This is the tier for characters that can potentially threaten multiple creations and most notably includes the Hands of the Source, and their oversees the Judges of the Source who are tasked with creating multiverses in the void. This would this include Perpetua and the Cosmic Raptor. It would also include The Darkest Knight and Golden Wonder Woman. Characters like the Hands create multiverses from their own energies and can hold them in their hands in the highest plane of reality.
High Tier 1: Endless Tier: This is the tier for characters who seem to exist across the Void in Infinite Creations, most notably the Endless who are implied to exist in every creation, and characters that scale to them such as their parents Time and Night, the Archangel Brothers and the First Circle. The Parliament of Worlds, the heights of the Elemental Parliaments seem to exist here as well as approaching the unbroken oneness of God, and parts of world tree Yggdrasil extending into the Void. The Endless are ontologically necessary ideas, wave functions that exist in all of creation and possibly in other creations. Death appeared in Lucifer's creation and it is a consistently repeated idea that all things are within Destiny's book, with him being depicted as existing in the Void. There are infinite creations and omniverses in the void. Father Time and Mother Night are the parents of the Endless who make all versions of the universe possible.
Tier 0: Absolute Tier: Beyond all concepts and dualities is Monitor-Mind the Overvoid, the unbroken nothingness that is oneness, who came to awareness, that awareness shaped by humanity and called the Presence.
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