Ranking the Justice League using just their First Issue

I've seen and done several versions of this but I really felt like doing another, particularly with probably the world's most famous superhero team. This is a ranking of who'd win in a Battle Royale of the Justice League using just their first issues. This will be the 7 Classic Founding Members of the Justice League: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Martian Manhunter, The Barry Allen Flash, and the Hal Jordan Green Lantern. I'm going to go over each first and then how I would rank them

Superman first appeared in Action Comics #1 in April 1938

The very first page of the story introduces Superman's powers, showing him leaping 1/8th of a mile and over buildings, lifting steel bars with one hand, running faster than an express train and it being stated that nothing less than a bursting shell can penetrate his skin

The next notable feats of his are easily tearing down a steel door and tanking a bullet from a pistol

Later, Superman easily catches up to a speeding car and smashes it, including lifting it with one hand:

Superman also shows some scientific knowledge, specifically on how electrical wires to be sat on, unless you are grounded in some way

Those are all of his biggest feats. At one point in the story Superman in his civilian disguise Clark Kent does take a normal train which suggests either it was faster than him (unlikely as he can specifically run faster than an express train) or more likely that at this point he did not have the stamina to run that fast for as long as he needed too

Batman was the second Justice League Member to appear, his first comic being Detective Comics 27 in March 1939

As opposed to Superman who is introduced by his powers and that he helps people in need, Batman is introduced to us as an adventurous crime fighter suggesting combat skill

We first see the Batman in action where he sometimes to demonstrate stealth skills, getting close to two criminals on the roof without them noticing. He demonstrates some combat skill with a headlock, knocking out criminal with one blow and throwing the other over his shoulder

Batman demonstrates quick thinking plugging a deadly gas jet with a handkerchief and breaking out of a glass chamber with a mighty blow

Finally Batman demonstrates more speed and strength tackling the armed Jennings before Jennings can shoot him and apprehending him before explaining Stryker's plot showing his detective skills. He also demonstrates his stealth skill again

Wonder Woman is the third of the Justice League Members to appear, first appearing in All-Star Comics #8 in October 1941

Wonder Woman is introduced as 100 times the agility and strength the best male athletes and wrestlers with the loveliness of Aphrodite, wisdom of Athena, speed of Mercury, and strength of Hercules. 

over two pages told mostly in Prose the Story expresses the Amazons as a race of Warrior Women since Ancient Greece and their story, with Hippolyta mentioning to Diana that she was taught all the modern sciences and languages as well as those of ancient times

Princess Diana of the Amazons in disguises engages in competition with the other Amazons to find the strongest and wisest of their number with Diana winning, demonstrates the speed to surpass that of a deer and blocking bullets at close range with her bracelets

The Fourth Justice League Member to appear only a month was Aquaman in More Fun Comics #73 in November 1941

Aquaman is introduced as "like the water gods of old" to dwell in the depths of the oceans

Some Nazis fire a gun at a lifeboat at a boat carrying refugees and hospital workers. "The very instant" the gun fires, Aquaman "whips" the boat forward, avoiding the bullet

Aquaman easily leaps onto the boat deck and physically defeats one of the Nazis though is not fast enough to stop the other from going below deck. He also demonstrates the ability to speak porpoises in their own language

Aquaman gives his backstory where his father, an undersea explorer discovered Atlantis and used their technology to adapt Aquaman to the sea such that he can "live and thrive" underwater. He is stated to swim faster than any racing craft or deadly gale. 

Aquaman strikes the Submarine his strength indenting the metal and causing the submarine to sink

Aquaman withstands the tons of water pressure which the story tells us is fatal to any normal being (despite fish being clearly right next to him.) Aquaman's eyes are described as keen and he his knowledge of deep sea plants to send a signal to his porpoise allies. After being freed, Aquaman moves with the narration caption calling him a human torpedo

He does have something of an anti-feat, namely that he is knocked unconscious from having a hammer dropped on his head from above

The Fifth Justice League Member to appear is Martian Manhunter who first appears in Detective Comics 255 in November 1955

John Jones is introduced as "The Super-Detective from Outer Space"

The story informs us he is secretly J'onn Jonzz of Mars, stranded on Earth. His powers are first seen starting with his super-sight that lets him see air bubbles deep underwater of a drowning diver. He assumes his Martian Form which is naturally invisible. He swims fast enough to create an air pocket for the diver to gain his breath back and swim back to the surface. He then whirls about rapidly, churning up "tons" of water to create a division for his attempted assassins

J'onn uses his super breath to direct some lions against some killers rather then their assassination target. It is established that fire is his weakness

To get out of the way of the erupting volcano as well as get to the target he uses x-ray vision to scan for the assassins and phase through the mountain he's climbing. He also uses his eyes to convert the rays of the sun into searing energy vision that melts the snow on the mountain and uses a flood of water to knock down the assassins

The Sixth Member of the Justice League to appear is Barry Allen, the Second Flash. He first appeared in Showcase #4 in October 1956 

We are introduced to him as the "fastest man alive" who "not only outraced his shadow but also broke the sound barrier -- on foot!" Which I'm gonna be honest is pretty weird since you'd think outracing one's shadow would be a more impressive feat

The Flash is once described as breaking the sound barrier and with his speed increasing

We then get a very meta backstory for the Flash as he reads the adventures of the Golden Age Flash as a comic book character before lightning strikes near him and douses him in the chemicals on the shelf near him, which he endures without effect though what these chemicals are is unknown so I can't say if this is an endurance feat of any kind

Barry sees a tripping waitress moving so slowly that she appears frozen and is stated to move at "immeasurable speed" as he helps her

Barry then sees a bullet headed towards Iris, this one is clearly moving from his perspective and he doesn't have forever to get Iris out of the way though it's still moving in relative slow motion

Barry is a scientist so creates a ring that produces his costume for him at a moment's notice showing his intelligence

Barry once again cracks the sound barrier with the Comic drawing emphasis on it along with running down the side of a building

There is a part where The Turtle tricks The Flash using a painted silhouette to make him thing a shadow is there which might be what the first page is meant to be referring to though doesn't really fit the description. The Flash's speed is high enough he burrows into the wall like a drill

The Flash for some reason tries to use a speedboat to catch up to the Turtle and is described as moving at mind-stagging speed

The Flash runs after him so fast he runs on the water but his own feet motions pushes the Turtle's boat at the same speed. So he runs around the boat at supersonic speed making a vortex capturing the Turtle. 

The Final of the Founding Justice League Members to debut was Hal Jordan, the Second Green Lantern, first appearing in Showcase #22 in October 1959. He has a bit more content then the others as while most of them were one story in a comic of numerous stories, with each of the others having some between half a dozen pages to a dozen pages, Hal had basically an entire issue to himself. 

We are introduced to Hal Jordan, Ace Test Pilot who is absolutely fearless, his pilot trainer being drawn to an area by the green light of the Lantern

The Alien Abin Sur has crashed on Earth and has a duty to pass on his "Battery of Power" to a worthy earthman, one who is "entirely without fear" and creates a bolt of pure energy which crosses the Earth at the speed of light, summoning Hal to his location

Abin Sur explains he is a "patrolmen of the supergalactic system" and uses his Green Ring to assess Hal for honesty

Abin Sur also explains that the Green Lantern Ring has a Yellow Impurity and so is powerless over yellow things

On the last page of the first story in the issue we see another weakness as well as a large power feat as the dying Abin Sur tells Hal the Ring is charged for 24 hours at a time before needing to be recharged at the battery. Hal tests his new powers by raising a cliff. He states that anything he wills he can do with the ring.

This is about the amount of content the other characters got, but Hal has two more stories this issue.

The Plane known as "The Flaming Spear"' has its controls frozen. Green Lantern flies out "like a javelin of light", grips the plane with his green energy, and lands it safely

Green Lantern scans the plane for outside interference, finding an outside radiation that was affecting it. The trail goes cold but he uses his knowledge that radiation always moves in a straight line to continue

Green Lantern phases through a wall, and when shot at simply causes the bullets to explode in midair like firecrackers. Also there's a pretty funny joke

However one throws a Yellow Lantern which Green Lantern obviously can't stop because his Ring can't affect yellow things and actually substantially affects him, seemingly knocking him out. When he comes to his senses, he easily catches up to their car but can't affect it because it's yellow

Green Lantern turns his energy into ice picks to puncture the car's black tires and turns his energy into a lasso to bind the criminals

The last part of the second story and the start of the third story are focused on Hal's romance with Carol Ferris. However the action resumes when Hal notices a missile directed as the city. Hal tries to stop it but can't because its yellow. Fortunately the tip is red so Hal attempts to create a net to stop it. The missile bends his net but it doesn't break and Hal successfully catches the missile

Green Lantern scans an area finding an underground compound. He again shows his phasing power and turns a battering ring into a stream of water. Also possibly a reference to the Golden Age Green Lantern being unable to affect wood instead of yellow

So those are the founding Justice League Members using just the feats in their first issues. As general statlines:

Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and the Flash are wall level physically. Batman is upper human level while Martian Manhunter and Green Lantern both lack physical feats but might be superhuman in durability just from enduring high speed movement with both having much higher attack potency due to Martian Manhunter's eye beams and Green Lantern's energy constructs. 

Batman is upper human tier speed physically. The rest are superhuman to some regard with Superman, Aquaman's swim speed and Green Lantern's flight speed being subsonic. The Flash is the speedster at confirmed supersonic speeds with one highball interpretation at relativistic to faster than light. However Wonder Woman and Green Lantern can both react to bullets after they are fired and Aquaman has an odd feat of pushing a boat out of the way of a bullet, but it's not known he started to push it, so it might just be dramatic timing that he pushed it out of the way at the last second. 

Beyond this Batman and Wonder Woman both have combat skill feats and all of them demonstrates at least some level of above average intelligence. 

I wanna start by comparing the characters whose powers are mostly just their enhanced stats: Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and to a lesser extent The Flash.

Comparing them in terms of raw strength and durability:

Superman in terms of raw strength is able to leap a tall building in a single bound. A calc made here suggests a figure of 96 Kilojoules. The source uses a mass of 101 kilograms which if is real comes from outside the issue. Using more standard masses of 70-75 kilograms for an adult man gives between 67 Kilojoules and 71 Kilojoules. It's also stated that nothing less then a bursting shell can stop him, but such is a relatively vague statement that while probably impressive is hard to quantify.

Wonder Woman is stated to be 100 times the strength of the best athletes. The world record for is 1008 joules thought this was substantially after the story was written. Still, professional heavyweight boxers can very often reach 700 joules in their punches so somewhere between 70 Kilojoules and 100 Kilojoules would be roughly Wonder Woman's level at this point

Aquaman's feats seem a bit more contradictory in that he is able to survive the pressure of deep underwater which the story makes a big deal of but is knocked out by a hammer dropped on his head. The two possibilities are either that he is much less durable when surprised or that he is specifically weaker outside the water. This is true for Aquaman in general, but isn't stated in the story though might arguably be implied by him being a human that "lives and thrives in the water." His feat of surviving the pressure of the deep ocean is hard to assess as it's not stated how deep he is, only that he has "tons of water pressure on all sides" The story does say he falls into an extinct undersea volcano. Undersea volcanos typically range from being hundreds of meters deep to several kilometers deep. Every ten meters you go underwater increases the pressure by one atmosphere so using 200 meters for the shallowest of undersea volcanos, it should be 21 times the pressure of surface level. The pressure of atmosphere is just over 0.1 joules per cubic centimeter. 21 times that would be 2.1 joules per cubic centimeter. Using the same 70-75 kilogram measure for an adult American male suggests a volume of 70,000-75,000 cubic centimeters gives a value of 147 Kilojoules to 157.5 Kilojoules for his whole body durability. This number is lowballed from using the shallowest possible depth, though also is the durability of his whole body at once not accounting for the focusing effect of something like a strike. For comparison the human surface area is about 18,000 square centimeters, while a fist, the amount of energy that would receive a punch is about 50 square centimeters. 

The Flash's feat is more simple, he plows into a brick wall like a gigantic drill. Using average male height of 1.7 meters tall we can estimate the indent as similarly tall. The width is not quite the same and the depth he penetrated into the wall is not clear, though evidentially the wall didn't collapse. Assuming he indented his whole body into the wall it would be indenting the same 70,000-75,000 cubic centimeters into the brick wall with red brick having a violent fragmentation value of 2.81-5.56 joules per cubic centimeter giving a range of 196.7 kilojoules to 423.75 kilojoules. That said this is once again the energy of his entire body, with the incident knocking him out temporarily. 

For Speed Comparison:

Superman's speed was given by the earlier calculations as between 27 and 50 meters per second from being faster than a locomotive as well as calculating the speed of propulsion of his legs during his jump as 46 meters per second however this uses his height not given in this issue specifically, using the 1.7 meters figure. Keeping everything else the same would give a speed of 42 meters per second. 

Wonder Woman outpaces a deer with most deer reaching speeds of roughly 15-18 meters per second which would be her leg speed. Mala shoots at Diana five times at what the narration describes as "point blank" which the pictures depicts as being several meters away. The nature of the guns are unspecified but the comic notes how the Amazons have more advanced technology than man's world, 1940's small arm fire regularly exceeding 250 meters per second. A quick estimate put the distance at 3.55 meters, meaning the timeframe is 0.0142 seconds. Assuming Mala shot somewhere near Diana's shoulder as Diana did to Mala and she had to move her bracelet to block it that suggested Diana had to move her bracelet roughly the span of her arm which on average for women is 61-66 centimeters giving speeds of roughly 42-45 meters per second

For Aquaman he is stated to swim faster then any racing craft would have included speedboats with speedboats regularly reaching speeds of of 52 meters per second. He has other speed feats but this is the fastest. 

Finally, the Flash is the simplest. He explicitly can break the sound barrier and regularly does. He is also said to keep increasing in speed after doing so, and the original caption describes him outracing his shadow. This would be somewhat inconsistent though with bullets still noticeably moving to the Flash. 

Comparing the four how do I think they do? 

Well I think if Aquaman's inconsistent showings are based even this early on him being in vs out of water, then since the fight would probably take place outside of water, the other three would win. That does kinda seem unfair to him since all his powers in the first issue revolve around water but on the other hand putting it in the water is unfair for him as it's a specific battlefield he is at the strongest and the other three would be hampered in the movements. Inside of water he might be the strongest. His speed feat is faster than either Superman's or Wonder Woman's, and there's no suggestion that underwater Flash can swim at the same speed as he can run, though an interesting fight might be Aquaman in the water with Flash running atop it.

Comparing the others, Superman can run roughly 2-3 times the speed of Wonder Woman but her reaction/attack speed seems easily enough to react and tag him. The Flash is substantially faster than both, by several times over. That said the Flash would basically have to ram either Superman or Wonder Woman with his whole body to try and directly harm him or they would just tank his blows, and the knockback force would likely knock him out giving Superman or Wonder Woman the chance to tag him. The Flash could try to create a vortex around them, but even if he succeeds in dazing them it's questionable if he could take them down with a surprise punch. I could maybe seem him doing so to Wonder Woman but Superman's body is especially durable with it taking a bursting artillery shell to penetrate his skin and bullets being tanked. I don't see Flash being able to realistically hurt him.

In a fight between Superman and Wonder Woman specifically, Diana might actually have greater physical strength and definitely has far greater combat skill being the best fighter of her people, a race of immortal amazons existing since the time of Ancient Greece. The real question is if Diana has enough raw attack potency to hurt Superman which really depends how durable you think Superman's bursting shell statement requires him to be. 

The other three fighters have more unique strategies. Batman is at a real disadvantage here. Not only does he not have powers, but his original story is the shortest at 6 pages. I thought his first story might have some weapon that at such a power level relatively speaking might be a significant advantage. Unfortunately he really doesn't show any.  His best asset here is really his stealth ability and if he gets the drop on Hal Jordan, Martian Manhunter, or Aquaman out of the water based on a hammer dropping him then he might be able to take them out. That said in an open fight he'd lose to anyone else here just from lacking abilities and stats.

The final two are quite interesting. Green Lantern is "powerless" against anything yellow, but he shows twice in the first story alone he can still affect the non-yellow part of things. While everyone here except and ironically J'onn wear yellow, usually it's only a small part on them and so would affect Hal if he tried to push their entire body at once or something like that. Assuming that they were to fight each other, and both went intangible my presumption would be that J'onn would win because Hal has a time limit, albeit a very large 24 hour one on his Power Ring before he runs out of power while J'onn as far as can be seen from the first issue can just stay intangible as long as needed.

Assuming they were to fight otherwise, it's a bit hard to say. Green Lantern has higher showings of energy output and flight so you'd assume he'd win. That said neither show any substantial durability feats so J'onn could just as easily kill him via his eye-vision. The other thing J'onn can do is go intangible and while Green Lantern can scan for him, if he doesn't know J'onn is there in the first J'onn could potentially get the jump on him. Hal also has transmutation but once again it's not a matter of killing each other if they get a hit in, it's just the first hit wins. 

Comparing either Green Lantern or Martian Manhunter against one of the first four Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, or The Flash it really just depends on if the former two get blitzed as if they go intangible they basically just win but they probably can't take a hit from them. 

So going to do my best at ranking them. This isn't so much who can beat everyone below them but who has the best chance against the other 6 on average. 

7: Batman: Having the least content and meant to be a normal human doesn't help him. He can defeat a lower estimate Aquaman or defeat the characters with more human level durability via surprise attacks but he is similarly helpless as most people against Hal or J'onn if they turn intangible and has no way of hurting Clark or Diana at least. 

6: Aquaman (assuming the fight is on land): If you take a lower estimate where his powers come from the water then Batman would beat him too. That's not really said but even looking at his feats while his swimming speed is the second fastest speed of characters here, it doesn't translate to his land speed and his physical feats are only nebulously in the same range as Clark or Diana. Clark, Diana, or Barry could likely speedblitz while Hal and J'onn can likely beat him at range.

This is where things get particularly hard as I think Superman and Wonder Woman can beat the Flash, but the Flash has the best chance of blitzing Hal and J'onn, with Hal and J'onn being large threats to Clark and Diana via energy projection, intangibility and general hax,

5: Wonder Woman: So I think Wonder Woman would have a decent matchup against Superman and Flash. Her strength statement is arguably more impressive then Superman's, though Superman's is definitely more casual and his durability is high enough that even with her skill advantage Diana might struggle against him just trying to put Superman down. Against The Flash via her large skill advantage she might be able to tag him but the Flash might be able to hurt with his strikes and even if he doesn't, with the speed gap and scientific knowledge might be able to do something like poison her depending on where they are. In both cases it's at least contested. 

Conversely due to her relatively low movement speed and lack of movement options, she would have serious trouble against Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter who can maintain distance with greater speed (And flight in Green Lantern's case) and ping at her with attacks stronger then her. Even if she gets close they could simply turn intangible there's nothing she could do. Unless she starts at melee she basically can't win against those two.

4: The Flash: So I think the Flash has a good shot at beating Hal or Martian Manhunter but it's not like an incredible shot or anything. If Hal starts in the air, then the only thing Flash can do is make a vortex and as ace pilot, you'd think Hal would have some mental resistance to that. Plus he has phasing and lightspeed attacks that hit a wide area. Against Manhunter if he gets a hit in sure he'll win but if J'onn is invisible he would have to find him which might not work if J'onn can see him coming with super vision and if J'onn phases intangible Flash still can't beat him. Plus against Superman it's arguable where Flash can even put him down given Superman's durability and Flash has a worse matchup against the lower characters then anyone prior possibly losing to a stealth-ed Batman (Or Martian Manhunter), and with Wonder Woman possibly tagging him. I don't wanna disrespect just how fast he is here, he is definitely at least here but I don't think higher.

3: Superman: So Superman vs Martian Manhunter I feel like so long as Superman doesn't start at melee Range Martian Manhunter should be fast enough to go intangible and probably would against someone as obviously physically imposing as the fast moving muscular Superman. At this point MMH can simply use his eye vision to whittle him down safely. Hal is similar except with the added advantages of flying (Superman could leap at him but that would give Hal time to phase intangible) and clearly knowing who Superman is in his own story. I initially Superman higher but phasing is just a very strong ability and I don't think he can blitz either of the two phasers unless they start close range.

The last two were tricky but I eventually decided

2: Green Lantern

1: Martian Manhunter

Both these characters have relatively similar superspeed and both have phasing meaning I think it would be very hard in most cases for them to hurt each other. That said I think J'onn has a few advantages

1: His super vision and invisibility means he's more likely to get the drop on Hal

2: J'onn seems more likely to use his powers subtly and efficiently in character. Hal is characterized as something of a hot shot while J'onn is depicted as being fairly quiet and rational as a detective

3: If Hal found out that J'onn's weakness is fire he could probably win but the same could arguably be said for J'onn figuring out Hal's weakness and of the two J'onn seems the more observant type

So overall I think the Martian Manhunter would be the most likely to win if the Justice League got into a battle royale using just the feats of their first issue. I attribute this to his versatility and flexibility. It wasn't from being the best in a category it came from having strong offensive abilities in his eye vision, strong defensive abilities in his phasing and invisibility, and strong utility abilities in his super speed, super vision, and general intelligence/rationing ability. He was definitely the midpoint of all these Heroes and their capabilities.

This was a fun blog to do and if people are interested maybe sometime I'll do a Team Trial with this specific grouping of Justice League