How they Compare: The Shadow Destroyer (Champions)

 

The dimensions are infinite and contain every variation on every possibility, but of all the dimensions in the Champions Multiverse, there is a forbidden one to travel too, a dimension known as Multifaria. Multifaria is the Chaos Reality. While the time stream flows differently in most dimensions, in Multifaria it is a chaotic whirlpool where places and events can spontaneously exist next to each other, where Victorian buildings sit next to modern skyscrapers, Da Vinci's flying machines fly in the sky under the Space Station forming a second moon, and one can experience a minute yet find one's comrades have experienced a year. In the chaos reality all moralities are inverted where heroes are villains and villains heroes. To this reality was born James Harmon IV was born to the powerful Harmon Family, a family with great power and connections in technology and though it was secret to the public, dark magic. 

As part of his family legacy completed the Lost Aztec Ritual and ripped his father's still beating heart from his chest, his father's dark magic entering into James' body, adding to his technological capabilities. Yet this still was not enough. James refused to believe the chaos of Multifaria was all there was. He plunged himself into studies of physics and sorceries and metaphysics and his ambition was recognized by the darkest powers of the Champions Multiverse, the Presences Beyond, beings from a horrific nightmare realm called the Qliphothic realm. Under their guidance over the next 13 full moons, he performed blood sacrifices in their name, crafting a perfect armor, a mixture of magic and technology, taking the moniker of the Shadow Destroyer. Horrible creations would come from the Shadow Destroyer as he eventually did the unthinkable and impossible, bringing order to Multifaria, bending it to his will.

When the Demon Cultist from the main Earth broke into the Multifarian Earth, the Shadow Destroyer took it as his opportunity and began his all-out assault against reality. Shadow Destroyer is an unfathomable threat, one who can make the Champions temporarily ally even with Doctor Destroyer, greatest villain of the main reality to stop his alternate universe counterpart.

Shadow Destroyer is one of the most powerful villains in the Champions Multiverse. This should make him pretty easily consistent in power to the Galactic Champions, players at the end of the power progression, who are consistently said to ward off threats to the whole universe. This is because Shadow Destroyer beat Doctor Destroyer in one on one combat, albeit by the "slimmest margins" with Doctor Destroyer being stated to be a threat to the players of a Champions campaign no matter their power level. This is consistent with it being stated that if Tezcatlipoca gave mortals much thought, he would be concerned with the power of the strongest magical villains including Shadow Destroyer, Takofanes, and Doctor Wu. Tezcatlipoca, as a god, is one of the Cosmics, the Cosmics being the race of beings who govern reality, often representing universal concepts and some of which being stated to survive the Big Bang. As such the Shadow Destroyer should be Universe Level.

Speedwise, even relatively low level Champions can gain lightspeed movement or at least near it which Shadow Destroyer should pretty obviously scale above. Galactic Champions have to protect large sections of the universe with travel thousands or millions of lightyears in years being common levels of speed for them, a speed Shadow Destroyer likely possesses. Some of the Galactic Champions are stated to be able to travel the length of the entire universe in a "blink of an eye", a speed of 20 quintillion times the speed of light. Shadow Destroyer may or may not scale to this level of speed, but he can match blows with his main universe counterpart who can clearly react to characters this fast, meaning he likely has reaction/attack speed this fast. It's notable that it's stated that Multifaria's bizarre time does not seem to affect Shadow Destroyer, suggesting that the passage of time may not be a factor to him and speed therefore is somewhat irrelevant.

Shadow Destroyer uses his armor, a combination of advanced technology and dark sorcery to boost his stats to the superhuman degree that it is. His suit also has numerous other assets to it including basic utilities like a life support system to allow Shadow Destroyer to travel into space, underwater, or other dimensions as he may need and a universal translator. It grants superhuman sight and hearing to percieve all things happening at once in his city of New Harmon. It's helmet, the Helm of Horthos as well as gives infrared and ultraviolet vision, 360 degree vision, and boosts Shadow Destroyer's already superhuman willpower to the extent he can't be controlled by psychics that can control entire countries as well as granting him resistance to powers that weaken his sense of sight and hearing directly.

However Shadow Destroyer is not quite as reliant on his suit as his mainline counterpart Doctor Destroyer is with Shadow Destroyer still having his old spells to rely on regardless. He can toss magic bolts, create mystic armor to ward off enemy spells, and has awareness of the mystically invisible, common powers of most sorcerers in the series. He can use his magic to sense lifeforce and magic nearby, telepathically sense nearby people and the level of darkness in their hearts as well as telepathically "nudge" them towards certain locations (a form of subconscious suggestion as he did to Luther Black), and can grant invisibility to himself and his followers. He was able to bind Doctor Destroyer after their first fight and he is stated to have a general capacity for magic to perform any limited magical task he might need. This should include pretty much any common magical power in the verse including mystic circles and sigils, divination, creating degenerative energy degenerating their bodies and minds, summoning powerful minions, causing mental confusion, causing direct pain, healing others, and general small scale reality-warping. The core of his abilities and his main tactic are his darkness based Qliphothic Powers.

Shadow Destroyer's main power and what's he named for is his darkness manipulation. He can shoot darkness as bolts or blasts, create bindings made of it create maelstroms of darkness around him and many others forms of conventional attacks. He can use his his darkness to drain lifeforce and energy from his opponents and add it to himself healing and revitalizing himself or bestowing it upon an ally, or more realistically a minion. In the rare times he is desperate, he can feed his own lifeforce to the darkness to amplify its power or to transfer it into more dark energy for himself or his masters. He can use phantom dark blasts to hit intangible targets and create layers of darkness armor around him multiplying his defenses and protecting him from many forms of haxes within the verse. The Shadows of Terror as they are called can be used to directly instill fear in his target, such that just the presence of the Shadow Destroyer is known to cause terror. Shadow Destroyer is referred to as the Master of the Qliophothic shadows and they cannot harm him against his will. They are referred to as a multipower, an extremely versatile powersource that can mimic pretty much any minor effect through versatile application. He can use them to teleport or create shadow portals to anywhere in the multiverse.

Outside of his darkness powers, Shadow Destroyer has a couple other Qliphothic powers. He is one of the few mortals who can endure the Qliphothic realm which generally causes madness and corrupts the being into a monster over time. He himself can create rifts to that realm that threaten to suck up anything nearby. This works even on immortal souls with souls trapped in the Qliphothic realm being unable to return negating most forms of regeneration or immortality. The Shadow Destroyer can use the power of the Presences Beyond to corrupt others into minions or create them from the darkness. His very presence corrupts magic on a planetary scale, turning it Qliphothic and causing all magic-users to risk going crazy if they use their magic and causing the magic to turn unstable, and with prep was able to sacrifice the souls and lifeforce of an entire city instantly to the Presences Beyond. However most disturbing of all, The Shadow Destroyer is draining power from the Qliphothic realm with his continued existence, the Qliphothic Realm being an infinite realm, and temporarily reached a pinnacle of power beyond. 

Shadow Destroyer to ascend into becoming "destruction itself" drained the very power of the Qliphothic Realm to the point that the Qliphothic realm itself allowed the Champions to enter into the heart of Nightmares to confront him. This ascended form of Shadow Destroyer is Edomite Shadow Destroyer, Edomites being lesser Kings of Edom. This is an extreme level of power far beyond anything prior.

The Kings of Edom are the dark reflection of the Tree of Life in Kabbalah, metaconceptual entities beyond all concepts represented in "Briah" the world of concepts. Having ascended to this point of being relevant to the tree at all, Edomite Shadow Destroyer would have metaconceptual power, beyond infinite conceptual power and would be a metaconceptual entity.

Even outside his temporary stint as a Edomite, the Shadow Destroyer is a massive threat not just for his powers but for his mental capabilities. He created his own technological suit of armor and matched wits evenly with Doctor Destroyer who created a similarly powerful all-technological suit of armor, suggesting a level of Type 4 Intelligence with an extremely diverse set of knowledge including hand to hand combat, battlefield combat, physics and metaphysics, military history, technology and engineering, sorcery and mysticism, philosophy, politics, legends and lore, and secret knowledge. He also has an intense willpower strong enough to be a mental defense on its own.

In terms of weaknesses, the Shadow Destroyer draws from a limited pool of energy and while he can replenish it by drawing from the lifeforce of others, he can grow weak from stamina. He has a psychological compulsion to kill and corrupt which can cause his actions to be predicted and is extreme anti-social nature means he's one of the few antagonists with literally zero allies and with a predilection of causing people to team up against him, even the Champions with Doctor Destroyer or the Kings of Edom. Finally while he doesn't draw as much power from his power armor as Doctor Destroyer as his magic remains his regardless, destruction or removal of his power armor would leave him much weaker in stats.

Name: The Shadow Destroyer, James Harmon IV, Citizen Harmon

Origin: Champions

Powers and Abilities: Superhuman Stats, Power Armor, Enhanced Senses, Magic/Reality-Warping, Darkness Manipulation (Projection/Binding/Armor/Constructs), Portal Creation, Teleportation, BFR, Astral Sealing, Planetary Magic Corruption, Fear Manipulation, Pain Manipulation, Confusion Manipulation, Summoning, Lifeforce and Energy Manipulation, Stasis Spell, Rituals, Anti-Intangibility, Resistance to a wide variety of powers especially Mental Manipulation and Magic | Metaconceptual Nature and Metaconceptual Destruction

Weaknesses: Antisocial and with a Psychological Compulsion to Kill and Corrupt. Relies on a limited pool of energy and his power armor

Destructive Capacity: Universal | Conceptually Infinite

Range: At least city-wide | Beyond the concept of spacetime

Speed: Likely MFTL. At Least MFTL Reaction/Attack Speed. Possibly Irrelevant | Irrelevant

Durability: Universal | Conceptually Infinite (Metaconceptual Entity)

Stamina: Fairly large but still human level | Infinite (As an Edomite, draws power from the infinite Qliphothic Realm itself)

Standard Armor: Power Armor

Intelligence: Type 4 Supergenius

Key: Base | Edomite

So how would the Shadow Destroyer do is Multifaria invaded other multiverses?

In DC Comics, Shadow Destroyer would have the problem that against people on his own power level his speed is vastly below unless the fight takes places in Multifaria or you think Shadow Destroyer's speed is irrelevant due to armor nullifying Multifaria's nature. If that is the case Shadow Destroyer would be on roughly a late Pre-Crisis powerhouse's level of power, maybe slightly less as they often had universal feats that were much more casual or low multiversal feats such as Captain Atom casually creating universes, Hal Jordan overloading the electromagnetism of an amped Doctor Polaris that controlled the electromagnetism of the universe and Supergirl puncturing the armor of the Anti-Monitor. 

At most periods in DC Comics Shadow Destroyer would be roughly a crisis level threat similar to other universal threats that the Justice League had to come together to face. His powers are actually fairly consistent for that level of power. In late Pre-Crisis and Rebirth while Shadow Destroyer wouldn't be as strong, assuming you think the speed wouldn't be a problem he would be a moderate threat to major superheroes and supervillains. Him messing up the magic passively however means he would attract a lot of attention (as usual both positive and negative) from the Magic-Wielders of Earth. In a straight up fight his best asset would be his ability to create Qliphothic Portals which if they sucked in anyone would be nightmarish for them as not even a Boom Tube could likely return from this, the Qliphothic Realm being beyond conceptual realms like the Godsphere. However he would be at a disadvantage from having a lot less range the most of DC's big name heroes, and strong enough technopaths like Cyborg could mess up him Power Armor's tech. However the biggest counter to him would definitely be Obsidian, DC's Heroic Darkness Manipulator. Obsidian could command Shadow Destroyer's darkness away from him, resisting the Shadow Destroyer's main form of attack and even the Qliphothic Portals wouldn't work as Obsidian can travel at will to the Shadowlands and through them to any darkness in the multiverse, the Shadowlands being part of the Great Darkness, an even FURTHER distance than the Qliphothic realm. While both characters have fear manipulation and resistance, enough to resist each others powers and Shadow Destroyer has other magical abilities he could potentially fight Obsidian with, Obsidian is a much more experienced fighter against opponents on his caliber and could potentially outlast Shadow Destroyer's stamina. A fight between them could probably go either way but even if Shadow Destroyer wins, Obsidian is the embodiment of the Shadowlands and if beaten will return to fight him against until he wins.

If Shadow Destroyer was in his Edomite form, obviously he'd be much higher and would compare more to the stronger entities of the Godsphere, some of whom have shown finite metaconceptual power. While Edomite Shadow Destroyer would be a metaconceptual entity, he lacks almost any real feats in that form and so would be stopped by one of the first beings who can actually hurt him, which would probably be someone like one of the lords of one of the Godsphere realms like Darkseid/Highfather, one of the God Pantheon Leaders, Archangels, the Strongest Lords of Hell, and so on. A good comparison for him would be someone like Fenrir from The Sandman who was conceptual destruction and could do so even to other concepts. 

In Marvel Comics, there is a similar problem of speed vs power, with Shadow Destroyer being blitzed by characters who are similar in power, unless the fight takes place in Multifaria or yadda yadda. Overall the Shadow Destroyer would be a High Herald to Low Skyfather level threat, around the same level as the likes of Hulk, Thor, and Thanos normally.

Shadow Destroyer would instantly become one of the foremost magical threats in the Marvel Universe if he appeared, being able to beat the likes of the Norse God Loki in a one on one fight of sheer magical power, and with abilities like BFR-ing opponents a metaconceptual distance, vastly beyond the ability of almost anyone to respond. This combined with things like lifeforce draining, magical corruption and general reality-warping are powers not often seen in the Marvel Cosmos. Not that he would be an unstoppable threat. Someone like the Hulk would tear through the Shadow Destroyer since he tanks dark magics and can return from the Beyond Place. Overall Shadow Destroyer would be a massive threat but one of the top tier Avengers could probably send him back to Multifaria, let alone a team of them. The bigger potential threat would be him teaming up with others though even with the most twisted of hearts like Demon Lords, Shadow Destroyer is not liable to team up with people being anti-social and an insane cultist of the Beyond Powers.

Edomite Shadow Destroyer would be a totally different story and would require one of the strongest skyfathers like Odin to stop, as Odin was able to fight on "all planes of reality." Now granted someone like Odin should be able to win fairly cleanly given Edomite Harmon's general lack of abilities, but still if most beings in the multiverse, even some on the conceptual hierarchy were to run across Edomite Harmon, he would conceptually destroy them.

In the Freedom Force Multiverse, The Shadow Destroyer would be an immense and immediate threat to everything. Man-Bot and Supercollider technically have the capacity to kill the Shadow Destroyer but it would require extreme circumstances (getting in close and desperation or getting in close and extreme rage respectively) for that to work. For the most part the only the threats are the god tiers Entropy, Time Master, and Energy X, who scale off Time Master being able to destroy the Celestial Clock and Man-Bot being able to power the Celestial Clock which provides motion and change to infinite timestreams.

While these characters would have infinite more power than Harmon, they're vastly less smart and experienced fighters with much more pronounced weaknesses. Shadow Destroyer's mystic awareness should let him perceive Energy X. Time Master and Entropy are both temperamental personalities that Shadow Destroyer should have no trouble predicting and he can use their weaknesses against them, electricity and energy for Time Master and randomly determined for Entropy. While they have powers that should work on him, with time powers being a really high tier power in Champions and it being unlikely Shadow Destroyer's magic resistance would protect against Entropy's chaos hax, Shadow Destroyer has a fairly decent chance against either if he can keep from getting tagged by either, especially as he can drain the Energy X from either keeping them from using their more powerful abilities. Of course that's against one at a time, and the three cosmic beings, especially Energy X which granted all the superpowers of the entire series to all the characters could overwhelm Shadow Destroyer. It's not even clear if Shadow Destroyer can kill Energy X, though overall he would be another god tier like Entropy and Time Master.

Edomite Shadow Destroyer would be on another tier. There are no metaconceptual powers in the entire verse. As such it's possible he would just solo his way through the verse. The one possibility is that even Edomite Shadow Destroyer seems to be affected by time while Time Master exists in all parallel realities simultaneously which means he may be able to mess with Harmon's personal timeline to prevent him from ever being born or from gaining his powers or some such, something that's implied to maybe be effective in Champions Online for some reason.

Shadow Destroyer is one of the strongest villains of the HERO RPG System, so how would he do in the most famous RPG in the world, Dungeons and Dragons? Harmon would be on the level of Intermediate Deities, deities superior or on the same level as Demon Lords that can control their own universal sized realms in the Abyss, which makes sense as he's comparable to Champions Cosmics which are roughly the equivalents to Intermediate Deities. 

Unfortunately for Shadow Destroyer he wouldn't do very well against most intermediate deities due to lacking conceptual powers and being lacking in versatility against them with most deities having cosmic scale reality-warping and the capability to grant and cast most spells in D&D. Shadow Destroyer should be able to at least protect for a bit using Magic Armor and portal to the Qliphothic Realm, the equivalent of the Far Realms in D&D would be a credible threat. That said against most of them he would be a bit out of his depth. He would do pretty alright against most Outsiders on their tier such as Demons and Angels as even if he can't kill them permanently, he can at least fight them conventionally and kill the material forms sending them back to their native plane. While his technology would be strange in most settings, Harmon would overall be a fairly conventionally epic level dark spellcaster with a strange connection to something akin to the Far Realms.

As an Edomite Shadow Destroyer's capabilities would grow hugely until reaching the level of the Greater Deities like Shar who ordered the chaotic multiverse and Mystra who unintentionally reorganized the multiverse with her magic. His nature as a metaconceptual entity however would be more akin to one of the Overdeities, albeit one lesser in stature than normal. The strongest of Greater Deities should be able to stop him such as Vecna the Lich Lord and God of Death and Occult Knowledge who by invoking the power of the Overdeity Tier Serpent, embodiment of magic resisted destruction from the The Lady of Pain, another Overdeity Tier Entity, with high difficulty. Vecna should be able to do something to Edomite Shadow Destroyer.

In Saint Seiya, another series with fighters of enchanted armors, Shadow Destroyer would be roughly Gold Saint Tier. Those with the Seventh Sense like Gold Saints with a great extension of their cosmo are able to recreate the Big Bang and Ikki with the Seventh Sense believed he could fly to teh edge of the universe, putting Shadow Destroyer somewhere in the range of the Seventh Sense wielders.

Harmon would do really interesting against the local threats. He has an extreme level of intelligence compared to the tier, but far inferior feats of combat skill. Normal applications of the Sixth Sense can grant resistance to the psychic powers that Harmon possesses yet things like atomic destruction, sensory manipulation, BFR, and mental attacks are things that the Shadow Destroyer happens to resist in spades. His BFR is more potent than anything in SS and can neutralize the regen of the Eighth Sense by trapping the soul in the Qliphothic Realm but on the other hand numerous fighters in the tier have shown ways of resisting being bfr-ed such as Andromeda Shun using his chains to grab onto nearby objects and pulling himself back or Virgo Shaka resisting the Another Dimension of Saga. They have numerous other powers that they can use on Harmon such as illusions, immense pain manipulation to the point of causing insanity or instant death, or splitting his consciousness across different planes of reality though he has counters or potential counters to some of these. I think the coolest potential fight would be against Anti-Pope Aiolos. Anti-Pope Aiolos is the Sagittarius Aiolos of the Chaos Reality, a chaotic universe where everyone's moralities are inverted with evil Sagittarius Aiolos killing the other Saints and becoming dictatorial ruler, a mad worshipper and sacrifices to the dark power Athena. Anti-Pope Aiolos' lightning would be an immense threat to Shadow Destroyer's metal armors though he can protect with Shadow Armor. Harmon could try to manipulate Aiolos, but Chaos Aiolos like his main universe counterpart has a particularly strong ability to see through deceptions. It would be a very good matchup of equals.

Edomite Shadow Destroyer would be a much bigger threat, having infinite conceptual power like the strongest of the Royal Gods like Cronos who threatened all time past, present and future or Chronos who embodies all space and time in the multiverse. Most of the gods couldn't directly hurt Shadow Destroyer but as mentioned time seems to for some reason to affect him so Chronos might be able to mess with Harmon's timeline. Also Zeus has the Dunamis, the divine lightning which seems to have a measure of metaconceptual power. This would also apply to the Chaos Zeus....who inhabits Anti-Pope Aiolos. This means even if the two reached their ultimate forms, the two could fight evenly with metaconceptual destruction. I may have made this blog to pitch this amazing matchup idea I had.