Ranking the Dark Army

 

During the Dark Crisis, Pariah gathered 10 of DC's most prominent villains to be the leaders of his dark army and kill the Justice League. Since then it's been a bit of a trend to rank these ten in terms of how strong you think they are relative to each other. So I decided to give it a try with my opinion based on what I currently know of them.

I'd like to quickly say that putting someone "low" on this list means nothing. Pariah was gathering the greatest villains, the team consisting of many of the strongest villains in DC Comics' history. There's also a certain level of relative-ness between the characters and some of these placements are ones where either side could win, it's just a matter of who'd win more often in my estimation. Nine out of these Ten characters could solo the vast majority of fictional settings even excluding ones without powers. Which does sort of lead to the obvious tenth spot.

10: Deathstroke the Terminator:

• Beta Metahuman Tier Stats
• S Tier Skill and Supergenius Level Intelligence (Directly compared to Batman repeatedly)
• Various powerful pieces of technology including the Ikon Suit that gives him virtual immunity to kinetic energy and a Godkiller Sword that was a threat to Rebirth Superman and Wonder Woman
• Regen (Regenerated from being shot in the head)

Probably the single truly uncontroversial choice. Deathstroke was added to the team for his tactical prowess being a counterpart to Batman. While Deathstroke's weaponry and armor, along with his extreme degree of intelligence and skill can allow him to hit outside his super weight class, he's on the lower level physically for a DC metahuman, most commonly treated as a pier to Batman and Beta Metahumans like himself. Given he was the Tactician of the Dark Army, and was only kind of a member along with just clearly being the weakest member I don't think there's any real contention about Deathstroke being the weakest of the Dark Army.

 After this point, every single one of the Dark Army has people who think they are near the top so this is where it gets a bit controversial.

9: Doomsday

• Kryptonian Tier Physical Stats
  
• Rapid Adaption and Evolution
• Resurrection
• Biological Decay Aura
• Energy Absorption

So while Doomsday is an extremally dangerous physical threat being able to easily withstand over 4,000 strikes from Rebirth Superman and doing physically the best against Jon Kent when Jon faced more than half the Dark Army's leaders by himself. That said everyone else in this list besides Doomsday and Deathstroke are beings from higher planes of reality. If they entered the physical realm and attempted to fight Doomsday hand to hand Doomsday would probably win. But if Doomsday was trying to fight their natural form then he's fighting conceptual entities bigger than then the mortal universes so it's more a case of...what do you expect him to do? Even if someone used a Boom Tube to send Doomsday into the Godsphere, Doomsday would be less focused then normal due to not having any Kryptonians to hunt down, and lacking the cosmic awareness everyone else has to know where they are, meaning pretty mcuh anyone else here could teleport to another Godsphere realm and plan a way to stop Doomsday as he vainly rips his way through the worlds looking for his opponent. Doomsday's adaptation ability is very strong, but the characters here are not just raw power, but all of them are masters of hax and most of them are highly intelligent entities that would almost certainly find a way to stop Doomsday.

That said, obviously Doomsday stomps Deathstroke. You'd have to make it Plot-Amped Wild Outlier Identity Crisis Deathstroke that beat Zatanna, Green Lantern, and the Flash vs original Death of Superman Doomsday for that to be an at-all interesting fight and even then Doomsday would probably win having tanked the entire Justice League attacking him. Even if surprisingly enough Deathstroke's Ikon Suit would actually let him withstand a physical blow from Doomsday, which is possible as it was able to withstand blows from Superman, Doomsday's passive biological decay aura would simply kill Deathstroke, let alone Doomsday simply adapting beyond the suit's defensive capability.

8: Ares

• A Platonic Concept of War
• High S Tier Skill and War Manipulation
• Conceptual Universal Power (Relative power to Hades who controls and maintains the Greek Afterlife)
• Various Divine Powers
• Manipulation of the Godwave

Ares is one of the Conceptual entities of the Godsphere, specifically the Greek concept of warfare having the ability to become stronger from conflict and attacks used against him. He's only number 8 because he doesn't really have the feats to compare to most of these entities who can manipulate entire Spheres of the Godsphere instead only being relative to Hades who can control a single universe within one of the realms. He's decently intelligent and hax as well, though nothing special on either regard. He was able to deceive Highfather and has various divine magical powers such as time manipulation, war empowerment, and summoning the spirits of dead soldiers but he and Doomsday are moreso treated like threats for a single high ranking member of the Justice League, Superman and Wonder Woman respectively, rather than a crisis tier threat like most of the strongest villains. His strongest power is probably that he can manipulate the Godwave to temporarily amp his stats which would be threatening definitely but I don't think he's really on par with the people above him.

Ares vs Doomsday however is sort of an example of the gap between Godsphere entities and non-Godsphere entities as Doomsday really has no way to fight the platonic concept of war across the multiverse. Even if Doomsday was Boom Tube-d up to Olympus to battle Ares, Ares' war empowerment means that any blow from Doomsday would merely empower Ares. Meanwhile, Ares could either use the godwave to amp himself to the level to dust Doomsday or use his time manipulation to send Doomsday to the end of time where he canonically can't return from. 

7: Neron

• The Lord of Lies, the Howling One, the Snake. One of the strongest Hell Lords, a Hell Lord able to control all of Hell, and easily beat Lord Satanus, another Hell Lord that can control all of Hell
• Free Will Manipulation that can affect all of Hell
• Spiritual Corruption
• Immersion
• Desire Sensing and Wish Granting
• Speedforce

Neron's an immensely powerful Hell Lord, one of the strongest that has existed. His power is great enough that not only was he passively controlling all of Hell, but another Hell Lord he was easily beating, Lord Satanus, was also able to control and warp all of Hell into his image, Hell being one of the 8 realms of the Godsphere, all infinitely sized conceptual realms. I'd like to say there's some reason he's this low, but there really isn't, everyone else is just so incredibly powerful. For being number 7, Neron is a freakishly strong entity that caused his own minor Crisis, Underworld Unleashed. He's also got numerous powerful abilities including immersion, conceptual mind manipulation on an infinite scale and stole the Speedforce from the Flash so he could return to Heaven an infinite conceptual distance away, meaning he'd probably be faster than most of the people here, especially if they fought in a physical realm. 

If Neron fought Ares, I feel pretty safe saying Neron would win. Not that Ares has no chance whatsoever, after charging his power he was able to kill Highfather who should be on the power level of Neron or higher as well as a similar conceptual entity governing intelligence. That said most of the time Ares is only considered as strong as someone controlling a single conceptual universe within a Godsphere Realm like Hades while Neron is stronger than Satanus that can control an entire godsphere realm. Neron's powers are also probably more versatile and while Ares is vastly more skilled and would probably win a direct confrontation, it's very in-character for Neron to escape, which he could via the Speedforce and Immersion, and battle more subtly. 

6: Eclipso

• Is the prior spirit of God's wrath fallen from Grace for enjoying his job too much
• Possession/Mind Control to the extent of controlling entire galaxies
• Corruption/Darkness Manipulation
• Conceptual Manipulation
• Hypergenius equal to Darkseid. Is the only entity in Creation who Darkseid is aware of that knows the Anti-Life Equation
• Magic Consumption
• Infinite Conceptual Power (Equal to the Spectre)

 Eclipso is a Spectre threat, Spectre during his normal adventures having infinite conceptual power that can affect all of Hell such as causing it to quake or freeze it, Hell being one of the 8 infinitely sized conceptual realms of the Godsphere. Spectre also seemed to be pretty directly comparable to Neron when they fought and Eclipso is Spectre's equal. Eclipso was also originally created to be a Kryptonite to Hecate, the first Deity of the Godsphere and Goddess of Magic with his ability to absorb all magic used against him, and cut off people from the collective subconscious deriving Gods from their power. Eclipso's powerset isn't AS versatile as some of the other characters here, but he still has a fairly hax arsenal including the ability to use the infamous Anti-Life Equation. He's also one of the three smartest characters here, regularly stalemating Darkseid at chess, and arguably being even smarter than him given he actually knows the ALE. 

Eclipso vs Neron would be a fairly good matchup, both being around as strong as the normal Spectre, with Neron probably having a bit of a power advantage. I'm not totally sure on who'd win with both having some advantages such as Eclipso being able to erase Neron with Anti-Life, consume any powers Neron that are magical and being smarter while Neron would have a general stat avantage, having immersion, and greater mind hax. However Lord Satanus beat Neron by using a magical drug to turn the demons of Hell into normal people, deriving Neron of his power source. I think Eclipso could so something similar by separating Neron from the collective unconscious. Also just broadly, Eclipso is the prior Spirit of Wrath of the Presence, the spirit of wrath having to regularly face down powerful Hell Lords so I feel like Eclipso would have a better idea how to handle Neron then the inverse, but that's more speculative. 

5: Upside-Down Man

• Embodiment of Chaos Magic, Hecate's counterpart from the Dark Multiverse
• Infinite Metafictional Chaos Manipulation (warps the rules of reality with his presence, even messing up the comic panels)
• Realm Infection (Can infect a realm with chaos magic, turning it into more of his realm)
• Magic Resistance (Outside the normal bounds of magic)
• Summoning (Summoned various chaotic twisted monsters to fight the Justice League)
• Even mention of the Upside-Down Man or seeing its true form can drive mortals mad

The first goddess of the Sphere of the Gods was Hecate, the goddess of magic who formed the Sphere of the Gods, around the Multiverse but she was mirrored by the Upside-Down Man, embodiment of chaos magic who formed the Otherplace, the Dark Multiverse's equivalent to the Godsphere, around the Dark Multiverse. The two were exactly even but Hecate managed to BFR UDM downwards into the darkness. Upside-Down Man sort of lacks intelligence and versatility on this list, but good luck trying to trick it when its true aims are incomprehensible, and its one ability, Chaos Magic is so extreme that it's the opposite of Hecate, stated to be stronger then any other God of the Godsphere. 

UDM vs Eclipso depends a lot on whether you think Eclipso's magic consumption which was created to be Hecate's Kryptonite, would work on her opposite's Chaos Magic. If it does, then Eclipso should be able to simply negate UDM's powers the way he did to Hecate. However, I don't think it would since Chaos Magic in DC isn't really a type of Normal Magic, which is formed of belief, but a dark opposite, which is why UDM is resistant to normal magic. Eclipso would have little other recourse against a being whose a threat to someone that can make the entire Godsphere. UDM does not rely on belief the way Godsphere beings do so he can't sever its connection to the Collective Unconscious. At best, maybe the Anti-Life Equation would work on UDM, but it would be hard to effect hit him with it as his presence wraps metafictional space and UDM could pretty easily warp Eclipso into a jumbled chaotic mess due to the power gap.

4: Nekron

• Is the Multiversal concept of Death and Darkness, The Blackness which is devoid of all the colors of emotions
• Can summon and control everyone who had ever died
• Absorption
• Lord of and controls the Purgatory Realm between Heaven and Hell
• Infinite Conceptual Death Manipulation
• Infinite Conceptual Darkness Manipulation

Nekron is probably the hardest villain to scale for me. He could be significantly lower, and there's an argument for him to be even higher.  However, I think Nekron should roughly be here. He and UDM are sort of implied to be on a similar scale recently, and both are meant to represent the dark opposite to one of the Seven Foundational Forces, UDM being a representation of Chaos Magic, the dark opposite to Magic and the power of Belief, while Nekron represents the dark opposite of the Emotional-Electromagnetic Spectrum. 

For Nekron vs UDM specifically, Nekron is definitely more versatile. If the fight took place in an empty void, I think UDM would probably win since his chaos manipulation is metafictional and would affect the panel the empty void is drawn on, but assuming this fight takes place within the DC Multiverse or the Dark Multiverse Nekron can summon an army vastly larger than Upside-Down Man, some of which would be a credible threat to UDM while none of UDM's chaos monsters would really be relevant to Nekron's. However this is another match I feel could go either way.

3: Darkseid

• A Platonic Concept of Evil, New God Tyrant of Apokolips
• Cosmic Hypergenius (Created contingencies to survive the threat of Perpetua and usurp the power of the Source. Can understand the Anti-Life Equation which is the dark half of the Source.)
• Omega Effect and Anti-Life Equation currently (Conceptual Existence Erasure, Mind Manipulation and Consciousness Manipulation)
• Spacetime Manipulation
• Power-Drain and Life-Drain
• Conceptual Manipulation (The other New Gods of Apokolips are extensions of Darkseid's will)

So I want to say immediately that Darkseid is definitely weaker than UDM and Nekron in raw power. UDM is equal to Hecate who is the strongest of the Godsphere Gods and Darkseid explicitly wanted Nekron's power for his goal, plus Nekron raised zombie Darkseid from the Otherplace as one of his Black Lanterns. However Darkseid currently is implied to at least relative to them in power, and is probably the most well-balanced character on this list having a high degree of power, hax, versatility, and intelligence, having a wide range of conceptual abilities relevant to this group as well as being possibly the smartest character known for his technological prowess and extremely long-term plans. As an overarching villain for DC he balances all these different threat types.

Comparing Darkseid to Nekron, while Nekron is stronger, Darkseid is definitely relative in my opinion and could win in a variety of ways such as erasing Nekron's concept with the Omega Effect, changing his concept, draining his power like he did to Zeus, or freezing time around him like he did to Godwave Ares. While Darkseid does think Nekron is stronger, he also planned on just usurping Nekron's power suggesting he's not scared of a confrontation with him despite being a hyper-practical supergenius who constantly gauges other entities by what level of threat they pose to him.

2: Aztar

• The Wrath of God disembodied from its host, a fallen angel stripped of identity and given new purpose by the Presence
• Spiritual Judgement for one's sins
• Infinite Conceptual Freezing/Sealing
• Reality-Warping
• Power Nullification
• Can channel and connect to the Logoz, an aspect of the Presence

Probably the most controversial placement of this entire ranking because Normal Spectre kind of has a reputation for being a jobber. However, Aztar's human host usually constrains his power. During Day of Vengeance Aztar rid Mr. Mxyzptlk of his power, a 5D Imp capable of making the entire fifth dimension disappear, a dramatically better feat then any of Darkseid's and arguably anyone below save some interpretations of Nekron and Godwave Ares. This means he could probably power-null and spiritually judge pretty much anyone of the Dark Army and can channel the power of the Logoz for a similar boost. He's also called the most powerful being in creation and was considered an equivalent to Marvel's The Living Tribunal.

The Spectre and Darkseid have encountered each other a few times, with both believing they are stronger than each other. Most likely this means Darkseid is stronger than normal Spectre but unbound Aztar or Spectre channeling the Logoz are greater than Darkseid. Spectre has overcome Darkseid by challenging the Logoz before, and while Darkseid has grown stronger since then, I don't think a rematch would be particularly different. Again, Aztar power nullified Mr. Mxyzptlk in Day of Vengeance with Darkseid by pretty much all accounts being much weaker than the 5D Imp, and it's not the only time Spectre has overcome the power of 5D Imps. 

1: Empty Hand

• Is one of the hands of the Great Darkness, specifically the one that shook the Presence's hand of light back during the original Great Darkness encounter.
• Metafictional existence (Represents the hand of the reader when he puts down the book, the darkness of the story ending)
• Metafictional Corruption, Awareness, and Manipulation (Aware of the readers' comments about him and adapts in response, growing stronger and able to brainwash or corrupt other entities on a metafictional level)
• Metafictional Regen (Is a lifeform that uses its presence in the minds of readers observing it to spread awareness of it similar to a fungi controlling an ant to spread it)
• Can build an Oblivion Machine, a machine that will result in the end of all the stories within DC Comics

Empty Hand is the strongest of the Dark Army and to be honest, that seems a generally uncontroversial position, though there's still mild contention. He's explicitly called the strongest of the Great Darkness' aspects which includes most of the other characters on this list. Empty Hand is the entity Darkseid was threatened by and schemed a plan to use the tear in the multiverse the Flash made in Infinite Frontier to fight him with only for Empty Hand to easily win anyway. For the other members of the Dark Army, comparing to a being from the fifth-dimensional realm in their true form is a good feat yet Empty Hand has an army of them, called the Gentry, at his disposal. Nobody here on their own save maybe Upside-Down Man and potentially Darkseid with prep have any way of permanently killing Empty Hand due to his metafictional regen and none of them have any real resistance to his power. Most of these people are considered threats to "creation" but Empty Hand seems to be an equivalent of the Great Darkness' to one of the Hands of the Presence like Perpetua who themselves make Creations out in the void with their power.

If Empty Hand fought Aztar, Empty Hand would probably just stomp right away. I don't even think if Aztar channeled the Logoz he'd really have the capacity to stop Empty Hand. The Entire Forces of Heaven and Hell united including Spectre as well as being stronger than Spectre could do nothing at all to GEB during the original battle with him, and even though Empty Hand is just a hand of his, it would probably tank Aztar's powers similarly.