DC Exploration: The Adjudicator

Who is He?

The Adjudicator is a much-remembered villain from the Bronze Age for being one of the Super OP villains of that period. He was the villain of the 3-part "Judgement in Infinity" story from Wonder Woman 291 to 293, which featured a crossover of the biggest superheroes at the time including Wonder Woman, Zatanna, Supergirl, Power Girl, Huntress, Black Canary, Madame Xanadu, Raven, Starfire, Donna Troy, and Phantom Lady to fight the cosmic villain the Adjudicator. 

The Adjudicator appeared on Earth-1, initially being a mysterious cosmic force. Wonder Woman using her lasso sees part of his backstory which involved going to worlds and if they don't pass his tests, destroying them acting as a "righteous judge" at their "decadence." The Adjudicator is confused at the Earth which has sins great even compared to the other worlds he saw, yet hasn't destroyed itself yet. The Adjudicator gave the versions of Earth his destructive minions to morally test them. 

Eventually, it's revealed that far from the righteous judge the Adjudicator claimed itself to be, it was actually the equivalent of a weak madman from its cosmic alien species called the Overseers who gave the Adjudicator a relatively lifeless section of creation to play with to keep him from hurting himself. At finding out of his atrocities, they summoned him back. The Adjudicator returns briefly in Justice League Rebirth, apparently having escaped the other Overseers.

How Strong is He?

Vague but VERY strong. Even his minions, the Four Horsemen were considered a match for the Heroines, with Wonder Woman and Zatanna struggling together to fight just the first one Famine. These minions are things Adjudicator can casually create, destroy, or recreate. It's stated he has destroyed universes with a shrug. It's very clear that he's supposed to above the Kryptonian and Lantern tier with him easily trapping numerous Heroines in that tier and with Wonder Woman basically only beating him to accidentally summon the Overseers on him.

Beyond that, however it's pretty questionable. It's stated his base is "transdimensional" which depending on whether you think they mean spatial dimensions or the higher dimensional worlds of DC could be in a higher tier. The DC wiki speculates that the Overseers may be the Judges of the Source which would mean he would absolutely phenomenally strong, but is pretty much only speculated based on them both judging things and seems inconsistent in presentation. The best statement he has is when Wonder Woman first sees him "I've seen a lot in my career as a Justice League, but I've never run across an alien being, if that's what it is, that radiated such sheer power and confidence."

Interpreting this statement is fairly nebulous however as it depends what you Diana is including as "an alien being" and if radiating power means the same thing as just being powerful. Thematically it feels like this statement is meant to hype up The Adjudicator's cosmic alien status but probably doesn't include deities as they're not usually referenced as "aliens" per se even if they technically are. It might including Darkseid though at this point this would only include Darkseid's Pre-Crisis Emanation as opposed to his Full Self, not that scaling to that would be a feat. Broadly he should be at least somewhere near the top of the strongest entities in the Multiverse, and maybe able to rival low tiers of the Godsphere even without the size shifting effects of a Boom Tube. 

What are His Powers?

Adjudicator is just sort of a vague cosmic being in terms of powerset. He demonstrates all kinds of random normal powers like telepathy/mind-reading, dimensional teleportation/bfr, sealing people in crystals, being able to destroy universes, etc. His sensory abilities are especially strong as he was shown to scan the infinite variations of Earth trying to understand the strangeness of this particular planet in all its variations. There are a few powers that are distinct though.

First off he casually created the Four Horsemen: Famine, Pestilence, War, and Death and should be able to use any of their powers. These four were all able to induce an area of their associated thing, seemingly over a city-wide scale with War also demonstrating control over weapons of war like a panzer and soldiers. Adjudicator also as both his normal first move and how he stopped the horseman shoots out a rainbow-colored beam that causes being to first be transmuted into crystal being being erased. It was suggested there were what he was going to use to erase the Earths. When he showed up in Rebirth he also showed arguable time manipulation as after Lord Havok and Dreamslayer sacrificed themselves to give Earth-8 another change at life, it seemed like the world was reborn and went through the cycle of evolution very quickly to return to modern day.  

What are His Weaknesses?

Probably the biggest one against characters that are at all relevant against him is that he clearly isn't used to fighting being similar to him. The Military was able to shoot him and damage his clothing because he didn't try to protect himself in any way and Wonder Woman especially is able to get the best of him a bit by thinking of tactics he hadn't. 

The other is that if he ever thinks of the Overseers in any way, they know he's thinking about them and check in on him and if he's done anything wrong will come collect him. Wonder Woman was able to beat him because she used the Lasso to try and find out why he thought he had any right to judge worlds to die which caused him to accidentally remember why he was put there. 

In conclusion, The Adjudicator is one of the strongest beings in the Multiverse and probably would be on the Lower End Fourth World Tier. Against most residents of the Godsphere, he likely has the ability to fight them if you think his creation of the Horsemen is indication of some control over concepts and if so he can probably fight lower end Godsphere entities even without the boost. Beyond that within the multiverse most people would not be able to fight him, especially if they are more biological entities or entities that are warriors. 

His main problem against other Cosmics of similar stature like God Brainiac, Time Trapper, or The Emanations of High Tier Gods like Darkeid is that most of them are much more intelligent and rational, as well as not effected by most of his haxes, and would essentially treat him the way the Overseers do. Especially since many of them can also read minds and induce thoughts which would allow them to just force him to think of the Overseers. Time Trapper may be winnable for Adjudicator as spoilers he's secretly an alternate timeline version of Superboy Prime and so hypothetically has a Kryptonian Body that Death Manipulation might work on but for the most part he would be at a serious disadvantage mentally even if he physically has the power to contend with them.

His best matchups would definitely be against other Biological Entities who attained cosmic power but still have hypothetical human or alien bodies ala Parallax Hal Jordan, Starro Prime, or Hyperfly Mister Mind all of whom have cosmic power at or surpassing the Adjudicator but have material bodies that can starve to death, die to pestilence, or just outright die. The Adjudicator might also beat Ares Emanations if you think his control of war would work on War itself.