How they Compare: The Red Death (Masque of the Red Death)

 

There was a time when a disease fell upon the kingdom, a disease greater then ever had been seen before. It was called "The Red Death" so called for the horrid redness of blood that was it's seal. It swept across the land, a seeming inevitability. The prince of the kingdom decided to wait out this horrid disease by having his servants seal off his palace. There as though in grotesque mockery of the plight of the kingdom, the wealthy and elite, thinking themselves safe had a masquerade party.

Until a stranger was known to be in the palace. No one knew the strange, giant, masked fellow nor did his silence give his identity away. But as he made his way through the palace area, leaving madness and death in his wake, his identity would be realized in true terror as...the red death.

Technically the Red Death has no particular feats of power or speed however it doesn't really need them as it's not truly a physical being. It is described specifically as intangible. The Red Death is a concept representing the disease and its inevitable spread. The red death is described as a disease causing awful pain, dizzyness, horrible bleeding and madness eventually resulting in death within half an hour.

The Red Death can similarly replicate its symptoms at will causing a group of people around it to shake in unspecified terror, horror and disgust and being able to simply cause someone to die as he did the prince. 

The Red Death also has teleportation, as shown by entering a sealed palace area, can move stealthily as despite being in there long no one had noticed it, and is known to carry a dagger representing the fatal stroke of the disease.

The Red Death may also be invisible without the garments it chose to wear as when the mask is removed from it, it seems to have no face. 

In terms of weaknesses, the Red Death presumably can be cured via strong enough physical purification or biological manipulation although even then one would need presumably to cure everyone with the disease to stop the concept, and the Red Death would require pretty strong versions as its a disease stronger than any that had been known.

Name: The Red Death

Origin: The Masque of the Red Death

Powers and Abilities: Abstract Plane Being representing the disease "The Red Death", Potentially Invisibility, Teleportation, Passive Mental Manipulation (Causes Fear and Madness), Passive Biological Manipulation (Causes Dizzyness, Bleeding and eventually Death), Stealth Capabilities

Weaknesses: Presumably strong enough purification or biological manipulation

Destructive Capacity: Inapplicable (Does not kill via physical force)

Range: At least country scale at full extent (infected an entire kingdom)

Speed: Variable up to potentially Supersonic (Main form only ever seen walking, extremely potent diseases can easily spread at superhuman, even supersonic speeds depending on infection rates and the actions of carriers)

Durability: Presumably Human Level if it could be hit, but abstract nature makes it difficult to hit

Stamina: Infinite so long as hosts exist (Diseases use host bodies for energy sources)

Standard Equipment: Dagger

Intelligence: Unknown

So how would other verses do if the Red Death infected their universes?

In the Marvel Universe, the Red Death would pretty much instantly attract the attention of the superhuman community. As you might expect most of the metahumans wouldn't really have much they could do to affect a disease spreading even if they massively outstat. The Omega Class Mutant Elixir however who has control over the human body and specializes in healing may be able to quickly heal and purify people at massively hypersonic speeds. If he gets to the outbreak zonew, he may be able to quickly start healing the infected.

Now that might leave him vulnerable to the unexpected manifestation form of the Red Death. While Elixir would probably have too much raw control over his body to be overcome by the Red Death's bodily control, he doesn't seem to have the feats to protect from the Red Death's madness and fear auras. That said there's another Marvel street leveler that could really help, that being Captain America. Captain America has an immense psychic resistance, and in a few canonical educational comics went up against the "Asthma Monster" and his monsters, representations of Asthma. If the two teamed up Captain America could protect Elixir while he's healing with his shield and his skill. 

Of course the really strong Marvel characters like Dr. Doom would be able to stop the Red Death solo, assuming they care too, but his abstract nature does mean it's fairly hard to stop him with just the lower tiers, unless the Marvel Supergeniuses can quickly create a cure (though Red Death may still kill people in the time it takes them to make it)

In DC Comics, the Red Death would also be pretty nasty, although similar to other horrible living diseases seen before like Morticocus. It's possible even the low tier wizards would be able to stop it as 7 fodder mages were able to seal Dream of the Endless. 

The DCU also has several characters even at low tiers with conceptual or metafictional attacks that would allow them to at least hit the Red Death. Harley might be able to do particularly well against him for instance as she was able to kill her own comic writers for writing her wrong, was able to resist the look against the King of Tears which was supposed to cause instant death due to her already being mad, and has a general resistance against biological factors due to Poison Ivy bolstering her body. That said the Red Death's fear aura might work on her.

While the DCU doesn't have as specific counters to the Red Death as the Marvel Universe, it seems to have a lot more possible or partial counters that makes me think that while it would kill a good amount of people, it also wouldn't get that far.

In Plague Inc, the Red Death would be pretty standard for a super-virus like most of the ones in game. Most Viruses in that game have a distinctive ability, and can evolve various forms of biological and mental manipulation. The Red Death would be relatively similar having biological and mental manipulation and seemingly a "will" of its own represented in its manifestation.

While the various diseases in Plague Inc have abilities like turning people into vampires, zombies, giving apes superintelligence etc. The Red Death's unique ability would be its teleportation ability, able to jump past sealed borders as it jumped past the sealed palace boundaries, representing the inevitability of time and death.

Plagues in Plague Inc can develop traits to make carriers resistant to plagues, and overall the Red Death would probably be as strong as one of those viruses, but not able to beat numerous at once. 

In the Lovecraft-universe, the Red Death for its horror could actually really protect humanity. It would definitely not be able to fight the great old ones that are beyond death, come from an immaterial universe, and have vastly superior psychic abilities that said almost all their minions or the alien races that inhabit Earth could be killed by the Red Death.

The Starspawn, followers of Cthulhu, are immaterial as their master, and far faster but have no way of hurting it and could die to the Red Death's death manipulation. The Shoggoths are mindless material but are biological in nature and could well be infected by the virus and biological powers of the Red Death. Even the The Great Race of Yith would likely not be able to escape as while they can react at MFTL speeds to telepathically transmit their minds into other bodies across time, the Red Death's passive fear and disgust aura would still break their psychic just from being in its presence. The Red Death vs the Colour out of Space could be interesting as the Red Death can't really affect the Colour, but the Colour's infection rate moves a lot slower so it seems like they'd roughly stalemate in virus terms.

While the Red Death would kill many humans in the Lovecraft-verse, it would also act as a biological deterrent for the lesser alien species, much like War of the Worlds as they would have even less defense against it and would ironically be mankind's secret ally, a conceptual force that is strangely human in its biology in a world of inhumanity.

In the Universal Horror films, the Red Death would do...interestingly. Against normal humans it would be as strong as ever, but most of the monsters it can't directly affect with its biological abilities as they are already dead. It could probably work on the wolfman and creature as the red death was spread by rats meaning it can just from species to species but the vampires, mummies, and prometheans all are undead and so may not be infected, although they could still potentially carry it.

The Red Death has other powers though and his mental hax could affect most monsters and his blood manipulation may still be quite dangerous to vampires as they require blood as their food source, so it could essentially starve them. Imhotep may be able to control it with his disease manipulation as part of his plague manipulation, although that's arguable.

If the characters team up however, Dracula can use his ability to control creatures of the night to control the rats and other vermin that would spread the disease and Imhotep can bury all the carriers in a sandstorm or control them himself, to keep them isolated and even if the disease doens't die out from this it would give the verse's superhuman intellects that in particular have good knowledge of the human body like Dr. Frankenstein capable of bringing people back to life and Dr. Pretorus who created several tiny homunculus, including one of the Devil, to find a cure for the disease.