How they Compare: The Dark Knights (DC Comics Dark Multiverse)

 

The multiverse is a manifestation of all the universes that should be...but seeping down beneath it are the universes that shouldn't be, the other side of the multiverse made of dark matter, the dark multiverse. The dragon of destruction ruling the dark multiverse is the horrible Barbatos. When Batman was sent back in time by Darkseid's Omega Beams during the Final Crisis, Barbatos caught notice of Batman and planned to use him as a portal to invade and consume the light multiverse.

To fufill this purpose Barbatos brought together a group of 7 Batmen from different universes of the Dark Multiverse, each corresponding to a member of the JLA. These would serve him as his invasion force, his Dark Knights. As the Dark Multiverse is formed of fears, each also represents a specific fear of Batman's.

All of them have an immunity to conventional attack as dark matter can't be interacted by the matter-energy with the Multiverse and required divine weapons for their regular universe counterparts to hit. However all the Dark Knights have a shared weakness. They come from the Dark Multiverse, the opposite frequency of Nth Metal. Nth Metal can badly damage them upon contact.

The Devastator comes from Earth -1. On Earth-1, Superman went mad from an unknown incident and slowly killed everyone else important to him and Bruce, leaving Batman the last one alive, taunting him as he destroyed Batman's Kryptonite Weapon about how Batman was supposed to be the one capable of stopping him and telling him that people's belief in him was why they were gone. In despair and desperation Batman injected himself with the Doomsday Virus, killing Superman and becoming the monterous Devastator. The Devastator represents Batman's fear of losing his hope, represented by Superman and his fear he might someday have to fight Superman.

In stats Devastator is strong enough to battle Rebirth Superman evenly, with Flash even noting the two are equal in speed. Devastator has many of the usual abilities of Doomsday, including regeneration capable of regrowing an army in seconds, rapid evolution capable of growing spikes to kill Superman mid-combat, and a virus that turns people up to an entire city range into Doomsday-infected. He likely can resurrect after his death like the original Doomsday. He can also breath kryptonite gas, and can change forms into a normal looking Bruce Wayne form capable of fooling Superman before returning to his true state.

Devastator's brain has also degenerated somewhat from the Doomsday Virus. While still capable of recreating the Monitor's Tuning Form, the multiversal technology of the Type 5 Monitors technology, hes more brute-ish and revels in destruction and death. 

On the gender-inverted world of Earth -11 Bryce Wayne was a retired vigilante when her love Sylvester Kyle was slain. In retaliation she launched a one-woman war against the metahuman populace. After gaining power over the surface world, she was opposed by Atlantis and in a pitched battle killed the Atlantean Queen, taking her trident. In retaliation and to protect this, Atlantis drowned all of Gotham City and began to drown the entire world. Bryce rapidly used cybernetics and biologically engineering to change herself into an aquatic entity. She then used the stolen trident and her technological brilliance to turn the Atlanteans against each other, mutating them into her underwater horror army the Dead Water. She represents Batman's fear of going too far in his distrust of others, especially superhumans, and his fear of Catwoman ever dying. 

The Drowned is strong enough via her biological enhancements to physically face off against Rebirth Aquaman and Mera at the same time. Her trident is also powerful enough to hurt Dawnbreaker when it was used against him. Her hydrokinesis is strong enough to instantly drown cities and flood the entire planet. She can shoot energy blasts with her trident and can convert an enemy with a touch into one of her army the "Dead Water", nightmarish underwater monsters capable of fighting Aquaman. She can also summon them to her side at any time. Her waters are also immune to conventional hydrokinesis as Mera could not control The Drowned's water.

On Earth-12, the war god Ares succeeded in getting a helmet which bolstered his power 100 times over. Batman and Wonder Woman together led a desperate final stand against the war god. The two managed to wrangle the Helmet from his head but Ares struck down Diana. In rage and defiance Bruce equipped the Helmet of Ares, gaining the mad bloodlust and divine power of the wargod and slew Ares. He felt a delirious rush of power, the thrill of battle, wondering why he had ever held his own code, when such a naked display of raw power had given him what he wanted. To his surprise Wonder Woman was not slain, only stunned by Ares. Diana pleaded with Bruce to remove the helm, knowing it was turning him into Ares' successor but Batman unwilling to feel powerless again battled Wonder Woman, eventually killing her, cementing himself as the new god of war. He represents his fear of what he would be like if he started killing, and his regret that his crusade against injustice, his war, will never end since his villains will always return. 

The Merciless is strong enough to battle Rebirth Goddess Wonder Woman, and slew the Greek gods of his own universe, although its unclear if these were just their emanations or their true forms from the Otherplace, dark counterpart to the Sphere of the Gods which would presumably be much more impressive. He wears the helm that boosted Ares' power a hundredfold. He presumably has the powers of war gods, and has personally shown the ability to control those who "worship war" meaning those in professional militaries as well incite bloodlust and the desire for combat with his presence. He was able to tank Projectile Valhalla, a missile that was supposedly able to kill any terrestrial metahuman because all weapons of war can't hurt him, only empower him. His helm also lets him "peer into the hearts of men."

The Merciless also has other enchanted equipment including the divine weapons of the Greek pantheon he took after slaying them. He also has a flaming sword and a golden drachma that can summon the angry souls of the damned Amazons that he slew which he can send to battle for him. He also possesses the Godkiller, a blade made to kill blades that can be summoned to the user and which can adjust its size freely. 

Hypothetically because Merciless's powers come from his helmet, disarming him of it might rid him of at least some parts of his powers, though this isn't a big weakness given even the gods couldn't do so. 

On Earth -32 when young Bruce Wayne saw his parents gunned down in front of him, he felt in himself....a sickening void....no emotions. Just the sheer will to kill. For his pure absence of fear and total will the Green Lantern Ring of the sector chose him, which he used to pursue criminals, overriding the Ring's own moral code by infecting it with the black void in his soul. The Guardians of the Universe try to remove his ring recognizing his quickly deteriorating mental state but Bruce simply murders them and taking on a new oath (With darkness black, I choke the light/No brightest day escapes my sight/I turn the dawn to midnight/Beware my power, Dawnbreaker's might!) he was reborn in the Central Power Battery as someone beyond fear, born of the void of loss and pure will, the Dawnbreaker. He represents Batman's fear of how dangerous he would be with superpowers, and if his discipline has crippled his emotional response to his parents death.

Dawnbreaker was strong enough to kill every single Green Lantern and the Guardians of the Universe of his universe and battled Rebirth Hal Jordan. He also survived the death of his universe, turned into a void its implied by the void in his heart. Dawnbreaker has the standard powers granted by a Green Lantern Ring but his lantern constructs are made from a strange anti-light that normal Lantern lights can't interact with. This is likely related to Dawnbreaker's signature ability Blackout. By directly manifesting the void within his heart, Dawnbreaker can absorb all light in at least city-wide area creating pitch darkness. This darkness is filled with his anti-light monster constructs within the darkness, strong enough to fight the Green Lantern corps. 

On Earth -44 Batman's rogue gallery inflitrated the Batcave. They assaulted and interrogated Alfred demanding to know where Batman was but loyal to the end Alfred refused to even acknowledge he knew what a "Batman" was, until his death. Wanting to keep Alfred with him, not wanting to lose his "father" again, Batman tried to recreate Alfred within an AI, an AI designed to protect and aid Bruce. but the AI went out of control killing all of Batman's rogue gallery to protect him. When Batman tried to stop him, the Alfred Protocol "realized" Batman couldn't be trusted to protect himself and engulfed him, fusing the two into the Murder Machine, a father who would never leave his son again, and a son who would never be left alone again. He represents Batman's fear of his own dependency on technology, his fear of the loss of his humanity to the Batman role, and his fear of losing Alfred.

The Murder Machine was strong enough to kill his own universe's justice league and temporarily held down Rebirth Hal Jordan with his metallic tendril. The Murder Machine can shift his body into blades to slash, energy cannons, or tendrils to grab and restrain. He has advanced scanners to tell him enemy power sources, shields to block attacks, and can create portals that can suck in even universal entities. The Alfred Protocol is obviously fanatically devoted to protecting Bruce and can essentially duplicate by creating numerous robot bodies it can operate at once. It also has powerful technopathy able to battle Cyborg's and quickly take control and recreate the JLA Watchtower. The Murder Machine is noticeably more defensive with forcefields, a fast acting mid-low regen, and turning off all emotions so that Bruce will never have to feel hurt again. 

The Murder Machine however is made of technology and sufficiently strong technopathy or other anti-tech based abilities do work on it. 

On Earth -52, after Batman was too slow to stop the deaths of each of his sidekicks, he confronts Barry Allen making the claim he could use the speedforce more optimally than Barry could. After a confrontation, Batman manages to subdue Barry, strapping him and the cosmic treadmill unto the Batmobile and driving into the speedforce. This actually fused the two, putting Batman's awareness primary but inside Barry's superfast body. Though easily able to stop mundane criminals by violently murdering them the moment they try to commit a crime, this Batman quickly realized that he was still not fast enough to stop everything and the destruction of his entire universe was coming, causing him to join Barbatos' forces. He represents Batman's fear of time taking his loved ones from him, of taking his ability to protect others from him. 

Physically Red Death is essentially identical to Barry in abilities and stats, just controlled by an evil Bruce Wayne although somewhere along he gained the ability to turn into a cloud of bats and reform. Beyond that he also has other advanced technology including the weapons of the Flash's rogue gallery that he took for his original confrontation with his universe's Barry. He also has in his Batcave a number of speedforce-powered Batmobiles able to keep up with Barry, and can build one with his super speed and supergenius intellect in a matter of moments.

However Barry's consciousness is still inside the Red Death, though sent into despair from years of unsuccessfully pleading with Bruce and watching his murderous actions. While he can't naturally take control of their shared body, positive energy can briefly give him control of his body again.

The Batman Who Laughs is the leader of the Dark Knights, gathering them in service to Barbatos. On Earth -22 when the Joker was dying he set off on his final crime spree. He managed to temporarily paralyze Batman so he would be forced to watch while the Joker attacked a hospital, shooting a large number of the parents dead before injecting the children who saw with a final irreverisble Joker Toxin in an attempt to create the hybrid of the Batman and the Joker. In his last dying action as Batman attacked him Joker breathed out same irreversible Joker venom unto Batman, slowing causing Batman to go crazy and become The Batman who laughs. He represents Batman's fear of becoming as bad as the Joker and the fear that he can not stop the Joker without killing him. 

The Batman Who Laughs truly is a combination of the Batman and the Joker. He was able to outfight Rebirth Batman and required both Rebirth Batman and Joker working together to beat. He is the smartest of the Dark Knights, he who hears and executes Barbatos' master plan. He has a wide variety of gadgets and tricks. He can use a much stronger version of the Joker Venom that infected him and particularly tips his batarangs with them to corrupt people on a single slight touch. His visor lets him see into across multiverses from the Dark Multiverse into the Light Multiverse and back which he can use with an inter-universal gun to snipe people from literally a multiverse away. He has an eighth metal gun capable of KO-ing Wonder Woman and has a guide to the multiverse with instructions on how to destroy it. He has also learned dark magic, such as dark magic playing cards that grant the users dark desires and dark magic which he used to kill his universe's version of the Spectre and bind the main universe's Phantom Stranger.

The Batman Who Laughs got way stronger later on but that version has a different title (The Darkest Knight) and isn't part of the team anymore so this is focusing on him just as was during his time as the Batman Who Laughs

Name: The Dark Knights, Nightmare Batman, Dark Council

Origin: DC Comics

Powers and Abilities: Superhuman Physical Capabilities, Immunity to damage from normal matter and energy (made of dark matter), War God Powers (The Merciless), Green Lantern Powers (Dawnbreaker), Speedforce Powers (The Red Death), Summoning (Underwater Monsters, Robot Bodies of Murder Machine, Amazonian Wraiths, Anti-Light Constructs), Shapeshifting (Red Death can turn into a cloud of bats, Devastator can disguise himself as normal Bruce Wayne, Murder Machine can shift his form to bring out various pieces of equipment), Infection/Corruption (Devastator, Batman Who Laughs), Planetary-Scale Hydrokinesis (Drowned), City+ Scale Darkness Manipulation (Dawnbreaker), Technopathy (Murder Machine), Energy Projection (Drowned), Mid-Low Regen (Murder Machine), Rapid Evolution and Resurrection (Devastator), Kryptonite Breath (Devastator), Poison (Batman Who Laughs), Multiversal Sight (Batman Who Laughs), Scanners (Murder Machine), Multiversal Dark Magic/Sealing (Batman Who Laughs), Reality-Warping (Batman Who Laugh's playing cards), Immunity to Emotional-Biological Manipulation (Murder Machine)

Weaknesses: Nth Metal and Energy X are the opposite frequency and badly damage them.

Destructive Capacity: Most of the Dark Knights reach Universal. Batman Who Laughs can potentially end the multiverse with prep 

Range: Infinite (Batman Who Laughs can snipe people from another multiverse)

Speed: Up to Infinite Speed. Conceptually Infinite for the Red Death

Durability: Most of the Dark Knights reach Universal.

Stamina: Massively Superhuman (most at least relative to Rebirth Batman), up to Infinite

Standard Equipment: Various pieces of technology (Batman Who Laughs, Murder Machine), Divine Weapons (The Merciless), Aquawoman's Trident (Drowned), 

Intelligence: Type 5. All relative to Rebirth Batman with even Devastator's whose mind is somewhat degenerated from the Doomsday Virus able to recreate Monitor technology

So how would the Dark Knights do if Barbatos sent them to invade different multiverses

In the Marvel Multiverse, the Dark Knights would be on par power-wise with most of the greatest of Earth's defenses who have their own suite of universal+ feats. Their speed may be a problem, though some of the characters possess time travel and acausality such as the Silver Surfer, Dr. Strange, and Dr. Doom and so should be able to keep from being blitzed, although the Red Death's speed may still prove somewhat problematic. Dr. Doom's armor might be at threaten from Murder Machine's hacking but given its resisted hacking from Reed Richards and Tony Stark, I think it's unlikely.

Most forms of direct attack from Earth 616's defenders probably wouldn't do that well relying on matter and energy. Divine weapons work so its likely Mjolnir would be able to affect them if Thor can hit them with it. This combined with the raw power and hax strong enough that several members of the Dark Knights were able to fight the JLA single-handedly for a time means it would definitely require the strongest forces of the universe to intervene to stop them. Batman Who Laughs dark magic could even threaten the cosmics. 

There are several forces on Earth 616 that can stop them together however. While Murder Machine was able to fight Cyborg's planetary technopathy, Ultron was able to overwhelm a galactic sized empire with his technopathy, suggesting he could use his technopathy to mess with Murder Machine and Batman Who Laugh's tech. Ghost Rider has a raw power advantage against them and his Archangel Nature means his weapons would definitely quality as weapons that could hurt the Dark Knights. He also has a spiritual purification that can extend over countries which could potentially purify Batman who Laughs of the Joker Toxin, restore those infected by the Doomsday Virus including Devastator, restore those transmuted by Drowned's infection and restore Barry to controlling Red Death's body. Also of note is that the Merciless's Greek Divine Weapons wouldn't work as GR can't be hurt by other divine sources. There's also a large number of power psychics in the verse that may try to restore Barry to control or telekinetically rip the Merciless' helmet off. As such I think that alliance might be able to stop the Dark Knights, though they would definitely still be a danger. 

In the Saint Seiya Multiverse, the Dark Knights would be roughly on the level of the Divine Saints who can battle the Gods who divine cosmo can travel the infinite multiverse in finite time, and whose power exceeds that of the Gold Saint Aries Mu's attack which destroyed and recreated a universe. If anything they might be slightly weaker in raw power, though at that level of speed.

The Dark Knights can definitely be hurt by most of the Saints, their fists being turned into divine weapons in the name of Athena being a recurring theme. While a lot of the Dark Knights abilities can be resisted by enough cosmo, Saints actually have a somewhat consistent weakness to biological abilities and horrifically enough Joker Toxin might be able to infect them, turning them psychopathic, though their mental weakness may prevent that and cause it to just work like a normal poison instead. The spacetime powers of Dawnbreaker's Green Lantern Ring, or its energy manipulation might also be a tricky. The Dark Knights also have the advantage of absolutely immense intelligences, each being smarter than anyone in the verse save maybe Chronos and as such the 7 of the Dark Council could something akin to a group of malevolent puppetmasters leading the multiverse to darkness. 

If this was to happen their biggest threat by far would probably be the Goddess Athena, a goddess representing wisdom and civilization, whose presence serves to keep such tragedies from occuring in the worlds. This is especially because Athena is a conceptual entity and the Dark Knights ability to affect conceptuals is somewhat limited and the fact that there are different Athena in different universes. The Dark Knights could wait for Athena to reincarnate as she does, but this doesn't seem to happen at the same time in every world, meaning that at best they can manipulate different universes at different times. I think most likely they would cause darkness across universe after universe until one Athena and her defenders finally catch them, and then battle them. They may win or lose, but it could go either way and sooner or later an Athena will win. The biggest problem would likely be Merciless who can control soldiers, and absorbs the attacks of weapons. It would likely take a saint whose heart is gentle like Shun to be able to stop him.

In the Cthulhu Mythos, the Dark Knights would be in power akin to the Elder Gods of Earth, greater than most of the Great Old Ones but infinitely weaker than the Outer Gods. Against their own tier they would be quite strong, as they are relatively versatile and intelligent and have plenty of ways to attack incorporeal entities. 

It's notable that with their extreme intelligence, that the Dark Knights would likely quickly learn of the Outer Gods, and would do what they can to if they can gain such power and if not to keep from being destroyed by them. In the Extended Canon it was known that one human, the Buddha, attained a state like an Outer God losing his humanity in the process. Not valueing their humanity particularly, the Dark Knights may try to replicate this.

Also the Drowned has a kinda decent fight against Cthulhu for dominion over the Ocean.

In the World of Darkness, another Dark Multiverse, the Dark Knights would rank nearly at the top of the possibly playable characters. They would be roughly on the same power range as Fifth Tier Mages who are able to warp entire timelines, but below full Archmages or the other god tiers. They are nowhere near as versatile, but they have some pretty alright haxes such as multiversal energy manipulation, war empowerment, spacetime manipulation, and multiversal dark magic. Considering that Mages are near the top of the Player characters in WoD that is quite impressive.  

The bigger threat of the Dark Knights in WoD is not neccesarily how strong they would be immediatly but how fast they could rapidly grow in contrast to a verse like the Cthulhu Mythos. in WoD much like DC reality is shaped by the beliefs, aware and unaware, of people. The Dark Knights are naturally smart enough to rival or surpass the magical intellect of the Mages, and already have some magical knowledge particulary the Batman who Laughs. They could very quickly become 7 extremely powerful dark mages with the added powers and abilities they already had. If not for the fact that mages and demons in the verse have insane information-gathering ability and could plausibly stop them before they get too strong, that would actually make them a threat to Archmages. 

Finally in the Billy and Mandy-verse, the Dark Knights would fit interestingly.

For the low to mid tiers the verse has several feats from country to star level, the level of power of Drowned and Red Death, and for Devastator, Merciless, Dawnbreaker, and Murder Machine they are roughly on par with the universe level entities like the Gods and Grim's Scythe which can threaten the universe. Even the Infinite Power gained from Infinite Size would be equal to Batman Who Laugh's dark magic. In terms of speed the infinite speed gods can grant from infinite size would be equal to most speedsters of the Dark Knights, meaning the group would roughly be seen as speedsters, though not uncounterable.

The Gods in general would be signifigantly difficult for the Dark Knights to defeat as they are conceptual entities. The Dark Knights ability to affect conceptuals are limited to particular interpretations of Dawnbreaker and Merciless (Green Lantern rings can affect the emotional-electromagnetic spectrum entities and Merciless killed the Greek Gods) as well as Batman Who Laughs' dark magic. However given their sheer intelligence its likely they could manipulate some of the gods, given their tendency to just blatantly act on their concept like Eris acting chaotically. While the verse has hax that can definitely affect them like mind manipulation on a planetary scale and meta attacks the Dark Knights would collectively be a massive threat due to combination with complete seriousness + extreme intelligence and speed +very signifigant power/hax.

However the verse has a possibly extremely potent counter. Thje Dark Multiverse is made of fears, with each of the Dark Knights being a fear of Batman's. There's an object in the Billy and Mandy universe called Horror's Hand which is the living embodiment of fear, and could potentially control or disperse the Dark Knights dark matter. Also if Grim can react quickly enough he could trap him them in the Underworld Fairy Tale Book. Due to their horrific warped nature, it's unlikely the Dark Knights would be able to complete a classic fairy tale for a long time. 

Reflecting on Reflections

 So last year I made a blog series called 2020 Reflections going over all my favorite series reflecting my tastes on fiction. Exactly 1 year series later, I wanted to give some points I had thought in regards to it. 

1: Don't do it

If you were considering doing this type of project yourself, I'd suggest reconsidering. I made the blogs in advance of when they were needed, and I STILL felt a signifigant time pressure doing them, though that may just be my personality. Beyond that despite the fact that I consider myself pretty good at explaining what I like about things, I found myself really struggling to not just repeat myself. Why do I like this series? It has themes I like, it has characters I relate, etc. Maybe I'm just not very multidimensional in my tastes (something I think is true regardless), but I routinely found myself at a loss of what to actually say about my tastes.

2: I was worried about my favorite series popularity for NOTHING

So before I made this blog series I thought my tastes were unpopular. There's a certain type of personality, the stereotypical hipster, that enjoys things specifically because they're not popular. That's like the opposite of me, if I have an irrational bias in the other peoples opinions axis it's definitely that I want people to agree with me/want to fit in far more than I want to be contrarian. So I go over my favorite series one by one and they universally fit into 3 categories:

1: A massive, either national or globally, succesful franchise that is well loved by lots of people. I think of something like Sailor Moon or DC Comics here. Both of those that have people that don't like them, and highbrow types that don't "respect" them, but which are obviously widely succesful. 

2: A relatively obscure series that doesn't have a lot of attention but everyone who has seen it likes it. I think of something like Magicka or Shamanic Princess. Both of those don't have that huge fanbases but hardly anyone ever dislikes them.

3: Rarely something I like will be controversial. A lot of people don't like it, but it will also have a lot of people who do like it and its hardly seen as bizarre or weird to like. I think of something like Yuki Yuna is a Hero which has a lot of people who don't like it, but also a ton of people who do.

None of my favorite series were downright unpopular, the only downright unpopular thing I really loved was the DCEU, or rather the early DCEU, and even that I would say has gotten more popular and now is moreso "Controversial" rather than "Unpopular"

I think my one unpopular like combined with the fact that I often don't love the biggest series that everyone loves made me feel unpopular. But when I think of those series, I don't usually hate them or anything, I usually just feel kinda lukewarm about them. I also found that when I was saying my favorite moment from my favorite series...they were often just the most popular and common part from it. Favorite part from Metroid was climax of Super Metroid. Favorite Part of Madoka was the climax. Favorite Part of DC Comics was All-Star Superman Superman saving the jumper. Wow....so unpopular.

My tastes are a lot vanilla then I was thinking, and ngl that's a reassuring thought. 

That said I do have some particular types:

I find looking at someone's favorites really interesting in particular because I think you can get a generalized sense of what someone likes, and maybe even a sense of what they ARE like (although I'd wanna be cautious with that.)

For me I definitely have a clear type of thing that appeals to me. In fact I think my tastes are relatively clear, it's not that multidimensional. While not everything I like falls in these categories, there's overall 4 genres I usually like I would define as

1: Magical Girl Fiction: A story with a female protagonist who gains magic-like abilities whose magic is somehow associated with her femininity.

2: Superhero Fiction: A story featuring an idealized or archetypal person with superhuman abilities who generally dons an identity and uses their powers to better society

3: Occult Fiction: A type of fantasy with a dark/gothic tone and usually focuses either on real world purported occult phemonema or have a special emphasis on the realms of the afterlife and its inhabitants (angels, demons, ghosts etc.)

4: Mythological Fantasty: A type of fantasy set in a world where a certain real world Myth Tradition is true and tries to recreate the worldview associated with it. 

My favorite series is Sailor Moon and ngl that's just the intersection of all four of those.

There's also a very clear set of themes that I particularly like although listing them all here would be tedious since it's a much longer list of between like 10-20. I might make that a different blog if wanted.

4: I have a set of artistic priorities that are inversely proportional to "immediacy"

I say this not prescriptively, that I think it should be this or that, just descriptively what I feel. When consuming the art, some things are consumed immediatly, and some things take longer to understand. The more immediate the aspect the less it usually connects to me. To rank-order them and illustrate my point

The most immediate part of consuming media is the aesthetic sense, the visual and the auditory, the visual perhaps slightly quicker than even the auditory. These obviously do have an effect on me, but it is almost entirely subcouncious. It is the aspect I think about least, and which have the least effect on me over time. I don't usually care much for how information is presented to me, and that's how I view art. I don't think of it as escapism, I view it as the presentation of a thought or idea or feeling in a more intuitive more emotionally gripping form. There are some aesthetics I like more than others, but it is the least component. This is also why I don't really care much about fight scenes most of the time. Usually the fight scene is meant to cause a rush of adrenaline, to create stunning visuals, to have an aesthetic beauty like a graceful dance. But that doesn't usually align with my artistic priority. I have said, meant self-deprecatingly, that I "read" every work like a book. I think in words and everything I see and hear is converted to words where the excess detail is removed. On one hand this means I'm very good at remembering things like dialogue but it means I may miss something obvious in the immediate.

Less immediate than the aesthetics are the characters. I don't become invested in characters the way most people seem too. The fact that they are fictional, and usually drawings on paper or digital images, is something that never fades from the front of my mind. Even when I love a character, I love them in what they represent, love their effect on the story, love the themes they carry. I don't love them like a close friend the way some people describe. There's a certain sort that will insist that the character is everything, that plot is nigh-meaningless in quality. These are the same sorts who will tell you that should definitely watch their slice of life series because it has such great characters and such great writing and thus you will like it. I know for my own part that is not true. I know this because the Sailor Moon Manga is my favorite series with my favorite cast and I've seen it adapted into anime, with filler eps that are mostly slice of life focusing on the Senshi's mundane lives...and I thought it was boring. Even my favorite cast in the world was not interesting to me in their mundane lives. The mundane world can be made interesting for a time, but it requires exceptional skill and I definitely wouldn't be interested in a series of nothing but. Characters are still less immediate than aesthetic, and are more interesting I would say as abstractions, representations of ideas.

Plot is less immediate than characters and least immediate are themes. This is where my interest truly lies. I am interested in a story for what meaning can be learned from it. The story, the events, these are instances meant to convey deeper pattern, deeper concepts. I am interested beyond characters in what characters do, and further still what this signfies. Stories have a power in them...there are great ideas and emotions beyond councious comprehension, or perhaps even if they can be comprehended that are cold to the heart, that are the theory-speech of academics rather than the ripples in one's soul. With each layer of immediacy the story, if well-done, manifests the deep and profound into plot, into character, into the most immediate of presentation. Each layer of immediacy I recognize the importance off in this noble endeavor translating and communicating from the ethereal realm of human awareness into articulation, but I think if you think of art this way as I do, then it would be most natural to cast for as deep into the ocean of a series that you can.

5: Some other interesting statistics

Just some things I looked at with my favorite series:

Of the 32 series:

-20 are Japanese (Cutie Honey, Saint Seiya, Metroid, Yu Yu Hakusho, Sailor Moon, Magic Knight Rayearth, Cardcaptor Sakura, Shamanic Princess, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Tokyo Mew Mew, Princess Tutu, Ouran High School Host Club, xxxHolic, Pretty Cure, Okami, Axis Powers Hetalia, Bayonetta, Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt, Puella Magi Madoka Magicka, and Yuki Yuna is a Hero)

-10 are American (DC Comics, The Powerpuff Girls, Freedom Force, Xiaolin Chronicles, Danny Phantom, God of War, The Stanley Parable, Wander over Yonder, Over the Garden Wall, Undertale)

-1 is Italian (Commedia)

-1 is Swedish (Magicka)

Given the degree to which I like Commedia and Magicka it's very likely I would like more works from places beyond Japan and America but I don't know anyone from those parts who could suggest a work from there I would like.

Of the 32 series:

-16 have female protagonists (Cutey Honey, Metroid, Sailor Moon, Magic Knight Rayearth, Cardcaptor Sakura, Shamanic Princess, The Powerpuff Girls, Tokyo Mew Mew, Princess Tutu, Ouran High School Host Club, Pretty Cure, Okami, Bayonetta, Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt, Puella Magi Madoka Magicka, Yuki Yuna is a Hero)

-14 have male protagonists (Commedia, DC Comics, Saint Seiya, Yu Yu Hakusho, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Freedom Force (I think Man-Bot is the protagonist of FF, if you think Alchemiss is, you can move this to female), Xiaolin Showdown, Danny Phantom, God of War, Axis Powers Hetalia, The Stanley Parable, Wander over Yonder, Over the Garden Wall)

-2 have gender ambigious protagonists (Magicka, Undertale)

As the protagonists for most series is probably less than half (I would estimate 1/3), this seems notably high. I think this comes from three factors; my general love for magical girls (11 of the 16 Female Protags are Magical Girls), my slightly greater ability to relate to female protagonists, and imo the greater range of emotional expressions women are allowed. Female characters are allowed to range from stoic to emotional and sexless to sexual while male protagonists are generally not particularly sex-ed so as to not distress the straight male audience and are generally most stoic as stoicism for men is viewed as more normal.

Of the 32 Series:

-17 are Anime/Manga (Cutie Honey, Saint Seiya, Yu Yu Hakusho, Sailor Moon, Magic Knight Rayearth, Cardcaptor Sakura, Shamanic Princess, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Tokyo Mew Mew, Princess Tutu, Ouran High School Host Club, xxxHolic, Pretty Cure, Axis Powers Hetalia, Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt, Puella Magi Madoka Magicka, and Yuki Yuna is a Hero)

-8 are Video Games (Metroid, Freedom Force, God of War, Okami, Bayonetta, Magicka, The Stanley Parable, Undertale)

-5 are Western Cartoons (The Powerpuff Girls, Xiaolin Showdown, Danny Phantom, Wander over Yonder, Over the Garden Wall)

-2 are Assorted Literary (Commedia, DC Comics)

Finally just a bunch of connections in a meta context I noticed of the 32, not thematic connections but like meta stuff connecting them. I notice that this kind of meta stuff causes "clusters" that if people tend to like one they also tend to like the other, an idea I find really fascinating that you can sorta tell a person by their clusters they're in...here's the clusters I'm in:

-Obviously the 11 Magical Girl Series on this list all form some kind of cluster of their own, with many of the series internally connecting. This broadly breaks down into the 5 "traditional" magical girl series; Sailor Moon, Magic Knight Rayearth, Cardcaptor Sakura, Tokyo Mew Mew, and Pretty Cure, and the 4 "dark" magical girl series; Shamanic Princess, Princess Tutu, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and Yuki Yuna is a Hero with the Cutey Honey and Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt being a bit harder to classify. Many of these share fandoms as part of the larger "Magical Girl Fandom"

-Cutey Honey was an influence on Sailor Moon who then recurvisely was an influence on Cutie Honey causing the creation of a more Sailor Moon-like Cutie Honey called Cutie Honey Flash. Ryota Yamaguchi who was a writer for both Sailor Moon Stars and Cutie Honey Flash also worked on DokiDoki Pretty Cure and Saint Seiya: Sainta Sho.

-Sailor Moon was an influence on Tokyo Mew Mew, Pretty Cure and Puella Magi Madoka Magicka. Junichi Sato who worked on the Sailor Moon anime co-created Princess Tutu and directed Hugtto Pretty Cure.

-Puella Magi Madoka Magicka was an influence on Yuki Yuna is a Hero

-Princess Tutu and Puella Magi Madoka Magicka have connected fanbases with the former possibly being a predecssor of the latter.

-Magic Knight Rayearth and Cardcaptor Sakura both obviously have a connection as they were both made by CLAMP along with the series xxxHolic

-Commedia was a direct inspiration for Over the Garden Wall and can broadly said to be the one responsible for the trope of telling the epic about the common person, the universal human experience rather then the transcedent demigod. This is relevant in sometimes DC, Cutie Honey, Yu Yu Hakusho, Sailor Moon, Magic Knight Rayearth, Cardcaptor Sakura, Yu-Gi-Oh!, The Powerpuff Girls, Tokyo Mew Mew, Princess Tutu, Ouran High School Host Club, xxxHolic, Pretty Cure, Danny Phantom, Axis Powers Hetalia, Puella Magi Madoka Magicka, The Stanley Parable, Yuki Yuna is a Hero, Over the Garden Wall and Undertale

-DC Comics created the modern superhero idea and as such is directly inspiration for The Powerpuff Girls, Freedom Force, and Danny Phantom although for the latter two Marvel acts more as an intermediate step. It's also likely an inspiration for Sentai, which influenced Cutie Honey (through Warrior of Love Rainbowman), Sailor Moon, Magic Knight Rayearth, Tokyo Mew Mew, Pretty Cure, Puella Magi Madoka Magicka and Yuki Yuna is a Hero.

-As 90s Occult Shonen, the fandoms of Yu Yu Hakusho and Yu-Gi-Oh! overlap

-Due to their cosmic imagery, coming out around the same time, and similar plot structures there is an overlap in the fandoms of Saint Seiya and Sailor Moon

-Due to the marriage of their creators, there is an overlap in fans between Yu Yu Hakusho and Sailor Moon. Sukehiro Tomita also worked on both of their animes. 

-Hideki Kamiya created both Okami and Bayonetta

-Craig McCracken created both The Powerpuff Girls and Wander over Yonder

-Emiri Kato played Kyubey in Puella Magi Madoka Magicka and Hyper Blossom in PPGZ as well as assorited roles in Tsubasa and XXXholic animes. 

-Nami Miyahara who played Rolling Bubbles in PPGZ also played Akari Tsukumo in Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal

-DC Comics's Wonder Woman inspired some elements of Sailor Moon, in particular Sailor Moon's tiara throw was inspired by the Lynda Carter Wonder Woman

-Both being 2010s metafictional games The Stanley Parable and Undertale fandoms intersect

-Undertale makes reference to Tokyo Mew Mew

-Ouran High School Host Club and xxxHolic have a bit of a fandom overlap, due I think to both being series about main characters that have to be in service to elegant teasing people they don't understand in exchange for paying their side of a deal

-God of War and Bayonetta have some fandom overlap due to being in the same genre of game

-Wander Over Yonder and Undertale have a signifigant fandom overlap due to both have a similar theme of befriending people instead of using violence and a few shared worldbuilding elements

-Cutey Honey and Bayonetta have some fandom overlap due to being sex-positive depictions of femininity with a heroine that is both sexual and has agency

-Tara Strong voice acted as Bubbles in the Powerpuff Girls and Omi in Xiaolin Showdown, and has had various more minor roles in Danny Phantom, Wander over Yonder and several DC productions (including the relatively major role of Raven from Teen Titans)

-Metroid and Cutie Honey have some fandom overlap for being relatively early science-fiction works to have a female protagonist

-Takuya Igarashi worked on the animes of both Sailor Moon and Ouran High School Host Club as well as an episode of Futari wa Pretty Cure. Yoji Enokido also worked on both Sailor Moon and Ouran High School Host Club.

-Shiori Teshirogi wrote both Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas as well as a DC Comics Manga.

Ranking every Magicka Chapter

 Magicka 1 is my favorite game, and I just wanted to make a fun quick blog ranking its 12 chapters, from worst to best. 

12: Chapter 11

Chapter 11 is really the only chapter in the game I don't like. The chapter is hard, but it's hard as the opposite way of the Grimnir fight, where it's the type of hard that just makes it impossible for casual players to get through. Magicka 2 would overcorrect this by a lot, making it so a team of 4 players are almost impossible to TKO if they care even the slightest bit, but this chapter isn't hard in the fun way, it's hard in the insta-kill way. There's monsters that insta-kill you very quickly like Yeti and Beholder, as well as just annoying enemies like the teleporting dwarves, mixed with lava mechanics that are just annoying. You have to get past these long sections of lava that can be instantly turned to fire causing you to drown if a salamander breath hit. All this would be fine for a short difficult section, but this is the entire level and it's one of the longest levels in the game. The other problem is the tricks to get around them are things that serious players would do that just make the challenge trivial, there's no happy difficulty, it's just insta-death or casual win. Fafnir's also not a very good boss. It's also difficult in the "this will absolutely wipe casual players but if you're actually trying it's not very hard." type difficulty. You just put on fire shield and move around and you're basically invulnerable even if it takes awhile. The humor in this is fine, but nothing special for Magicka, and there's not much lore added or anything. The Gram quest is cool but the fact that it requires you to keep a sword in the section where you have to get past a long section of lava that you can lose your sword to anytime is perhaps the most sadistic thing I've seen in any of this series. You get invisibility and summon elemental, two really cool magicka, this level but it's almost the end of the game so you barely get any time to use them.

11: Chapter 7

Chapter 7 is the chapter you go back in time. It's also the only level with zero fights in it. As such there's no real reason to re-play it. You can use it to get the achivement for getting through a level without casting basic spells really easily, and it's the chapter you get Teleport, my favorite Magicka, but there's basically no gameplay this level. It's like waiting in an elevator between two levels.

10: Chapter 8

This is another really long level, a lot of it taking place in darkness unless you light it up, over precarious cliffs. While this risks running over a similar trouble as the lava in 11, in practice it's not really an issue since there's barely any knockback, and you can pretty easily light up the darkness, or just teleport through it. This level also has the bridge battle, a battle on a small bridge with goblin army forces approaching from both sides which is a fun challenge predicated on a lack of space to manuever, with spacing being a wizard's best friend. I have kind of a personal vendetta against this level however for its boss. The Goblin Aristocrats are pretty easy to beat, maybe a slight challenge for casual players, but overall one of the easiest bosses in the game, as they can only use basic elements and cast nullify. But in challenge rooms Goblin Aristocrats "nullify" I've found to be one of the most annoying enemies to fight, since they can act as devilishly difficult support for stronger enemies by nullifying your magic.

9: Chapter 1

The first chapter of the game is quite funny with memorable parts like the sword in the stone, the woman with the exclamation mark chasing her and everything in Castle Aldreheim, and gives a pretty good tutorial for the game, which is basically skippable, followed by two easy fights against goblins and spiders, and a boss fight against a troll, a stronger common enemy in the game. Ygg the forest troll is a good tutorial boss, being slow moving and easily avoidable, and with an elemental weakness, but lots of regenerating hp teaching the new player to avoid close fights, and practice using proper elements on corresponding enemies. While a good introduction, not much reason to go back to it as it more serves to ramp the player up to the greater challenges of the game.

8: Chapter 2

Chapter 2 is a pretty good chapter to ramp up from Chapter 1. It suffers a little bit from lack of monster variety since while goblins and trolls are different in tactics, both are weak to fire. Goblins do come in impressive variety, and the game really hits its stride with its humor with things like Goblin Hood or the Goblin Aristocrat making a somber chant only for it to be revealing to be gibberish, as well as fun secrets hidden on the map. I'm not a big fan of the boss of the level Jormungandr as hitting his head is kind of an annoying mechanic. There are tricks to get around it with wetting his head and then using lightning to chain to it, but the fact you can only hit his head is unintuitive when most of the game is delightfully intuitive, and you'd think you can damage him normally. Jormundanr is also the least squishy thing in the game, having too much HP but doing barely any damage making the fight feel really grindy. Most of the level is pretty fun, though the game is still kinda going easy, without much real challenge. Any serious player will blaze through Chapter 2 basically without thinking.

7: Chapter 4

Chapter 4 sees you mostly traveling through the city of Havindr. Similar to Chapter 2, I like most of the chapter more than the boss fight. The Machine part is obviously a joke, but the Warlock is kind of annoyingly-anti squishy and while not really hard, he takes a while to fight. That said the Warlock is a lot more of a threat then Jormungandr and so the fight is a lot tenser and more of a challenge. The enemies are more varied and signifignatly stronger in 4 compared to 2 with varieties of orcs and disciples (dark mages), the secrets are as exciting with fun things like just burning the dynamite to get through the door instead of having to wait for the long fuse to go off. 

6: Chapter 9

The Swamp Level. This chapter has the annoying swamp water mechanic which periodically makes it tricky to use lightning for rez or similar effects, but the enemies are great this level. Zombies and the undead really change your thinking having to use life as primary damage dealer, especially when mixed in with alive enemies that heal from life like treants. This level is full of difficult but fair fun enemies like treants and undead knights that are high damage dealers but slow, and so emphasis is put on mobility, something that again would be easier with lightning for haste and teleport. There's the fun jokes of healing the villagers and you also get the Vlad fight, one of the best fights in the game. Not only is it fun from a story perspective (including one of the most shocking twists in video game history. I won't spoil what he actually is but turns out Vlad isn't human!) but Vlad is a fun boss, running around shooting out powerful elemental blasts and trying to life drain.

5: Chapter 3

Chapter 3 involves fighting beastmen, and druids, enemies you don't see most points of the game and are a fun diversion with differnet tactics. Beastmen are more mobile and elemental, and Druids have their nature magic, as opposed to the usual slow heavy hitters the wizards have to face. The airship sequence is tricky for casuals, but a very fair challenge for its place in the story, and a fun dynamic, even if the developers wished it turns out well. Jotunn isn't as good a boss fight as Vlad, but I do like that there's a secondary objective in this fight where you can beat and optimally beat him before any house explodes. If you do you get the M60! Also while they're not as flashy or as practical, this level in general just seems to have the coolest weapons in the game just everywhere. 

4: Chapter 6

Chapter 6 is a struggle up a mountain at the edge of the world with a lot of pit mechanics pre-teleportation that aren't really the fun, frustrating if they work, but usually just being a mildly annoyance to avoid. The daemons are also not that fun enemies since it's a bunch of waiting around for them to materialize although at least they've different elements and attacks. By itself it would be lower...but this chapter also has the first Grimnir fight. The Grimnir fight is by a good margin the best fight in the game. Grimnir is the most developed character in the game followed by Vlad, he has a really cool introduction, is built up since the prologue, and this fight really justifies it. First Grimnir traps you in a mental duel where you have to fight a procession of enemies past and future while a giant ethereal Grimnir watches, showing you a display of his power. Than after you beat that, the fight proper begins. The difficulty of the Grimnir fight is JUST right. Grimnir is a difficult but winnable fight for a single casual player, and a group of serious players. Grimnir wiped the Magicka developers several times, yet he's not a frustrating unwinnable fight for even a casual team. This comes from the fact that he is perhaps the squishiest boss in the game, not much HP, but really strong spells with large area of effect, and can cast numerous at once. Even a casual team can win with teamwork and focus if one nullifies and the others attack or they use overlapping elemental shields and dry themselves out but on the other hand when do wizards ever colloborate ;) Grimnir really feels to fight exactly what he is, the greatest wizard in the world bound up but still just flexing his magical power on you. 

3: Chapter 5

If I just wanted to relax and play some casual Magicka...I'd probably do some of the easier arenas, but if I was going to do one of the campaign levels it'd be level 5. Level 5 is the battlefield level, where you go through a large army of orcs, disciples, and trolls. It's a long level, with lots of enemies, which is difficult to casuals, but to serious players are not really a trouble. They put up enough of a fight that the mind is stimulated, but just little threat that it's a fun relaxing playthrough just tearing through them. This chapter really shows the degree of difference skill at Magicka makes. For casual players the threat of this level and what makes it diffiult is the sheer number of enemies, but when you get good at the game, weak enemies no matter the number don't post any threat so you can feel like a god at the game just by easily destroying the enemy army single-handedly. The 300 references are also funny and Khan is a pretty fair boss fight, his insta-kill bombs kinda annoying but nothing that bad.

2: Chapter 10

Chapter 10 sees the wizards traveling through Niflheim, realm of the dead combining the best aspects of Chapters 3 and Chapters 9. You're fighting elements and shades, undead enemies with elemental attacks, so fighting combines matching opposite elements and using life in a new strategic way. This level also has the Death fight, one of the best in the game. Death is a real tricky enemy, summoning shades, creating illusory copies and insta-killing with his scythe. This level tries for atmosphere in a way most of Magicka doesn't, and it honestly works really well. While still ultimately comical, the shady atmosphere of Death makes for a really cool boss fight and level.

1: Chapter 12

Chapter 12, the final chapter, is a boss rush. Vlad and Grimnir are the first two enemies and not only are they two of the top 3 fights in the game with Death, but the two are a study in contrasts, humorous given they are old friends. Vlad is bombastic and theatrical, running around and attacking with massive elemental blasts. Meanwhile Grimnir is underplayed, precise, and focused while chained up. The two both make for amazing fights leading into Assatur fight. Assatur isn't as good a fight as Grimnir, but he's still pretty good and it just completes the trifecta of chapter 12. 

How they Compare: The Riders of Havoc (Bastard!!)

 

The Evil Wizard Dark Schneider sought to conquer the world using an army of wizards and sorcerers, spreading death and chaos. This army was led by 4, the 4 horsemen of this apocalypse, including Dark Schneider himself, until the day that the messiah of darkness seemingly perished, sending his forces into disarray.

15 years later, in a desperate attempt to protect their kingdom from an invading army, the desperate kingdom of Metallicana unsealed the Dark Wizard who saught again to make the world his. However in that time the Riders of Havoc had come under the leadership of a fourth new Rider. They would confront their own master, until he could prove to them with his strength that he was the same Dark Schneider as their former lord, despite the seeming shift in his position and his soul.

Power-wise, all four of the Riders of Havoc are obviously massively above fodder tiers like MacPain who withstood Dark Schneider casually sending him flying and crashing through a skyscraper crumbling it with a force of 6.5 tons of tnt. Even the physical power of the Magic-based Riders of Havoc should be far above this value in the large building+ to city block range.

For the most part the Riders of Havoc are on the city level range. Ninja Master Gara, the non-magical one of the four, survived the blow of the legendary blade the Raijinken which can cut through mountains. Arshes Nei, Abigail, and Kal Su all can use Spell Bounds, a magical defensive technique capable of blocking a nuclear bomb. Abigail's Mecha Form Omega Abigail casually burst through a Spell Bounds and has the Devilish Hammer which can create city-busting earthquakes, Arshes Nei uses the Legendary Raijinken which can split a mountain with a strike, Gara bust through the Spell Bound of Ede Ee, and Kal Su can use freezing spells whose intense cold can create city-scale snowstorms.

They can also to limited degrees get up to country level or higher . Arshes Nei can use, during certain moon phases, Halloween a spell with more than 50% of Dark Schneider's Black Sabbath, a spell that can endanger the world if misused and who atomized a large quantity of stone calced at country level power. Kal Su the strongest of the Riders of Havoc was able to match Dark Schneider in spellcasting in a magical fire vs ice battle, Kal Su's strongest spell forcing Dark Schneider who scales to his own Black Sabbath to create a dimensional bend to protect himself, and his own cold nature protected from Dark Schneider's heat magic, even the teraton level attacks. Also Omega Abigail is durable enough to tank the power of two Halloweens. 

Speedwise, all 4 of the Riders of Havoc are massively beyond lower tier humans who have their own supersonic feats. Even low tiers use supersonic attacks and can punch hundreds of times a second and the Riders can easily blitz characters of this tier with Gara being able to move so quickly that it appears there's seven of him that look like perfect copies of himself to characters that can block supersonic attacks easily. They're clearly hypersonic to some degree. Gara was also able to catch a lightspeed attack, suggesting he has relativistic reaction speed with the others may scale too. Gara also has a lightspeed ultimate attack but this obviously doesn't scale to his normal speed.

Ninja Master Gara is a master tier ninja, wielding the enchanted blade Murasame. He is considered the weakest of the Riders of Havoc.

He can use ninja tricks like moving fast enough that it appears there's 7 of him, and can disguise himself such as transforming himself to look like an old man. He has an insane endurance as well as regen, to the point that he could easily continue fighting with one arm slashed off and retained councious with a huge gash through his midsection, eventually regenerating from both of these.

Casual swings of the Murasame can create intense sharp winds and shockwaves capable of destroying buildings. He can unlock the full cursed power of Murasame by feeding his own life energy into it to allow it to not only reach likely city+ level, but also can destroy not just the physical body but the soul of his target, for which the blade was known as the cursed blade.

Gara also learned the ability to weapon his ki. He can infuse it into his hands to make them glow with bright light and catch immaterial things like light and throw them back and could infuse it into Murasame to create his strongest attack "Celestial Flash", where Gara strings forward destroying everything at close and midrange at lightspeed.

Gara's weaknesses are that he's not too bright and he lacks magic.

Arshes Nei is the half-dark elf warrior mage, and is a master of wind, fire, and lightning magic. She also contains the legendary lightning blade Raijinken which can slice mountains in half. Her strike with it is called "Lightning Comet" and is easily comparable to her strongest lightning spell "Tesla." For her lightning mastery, she is nicknamed "the Thunder Empress."

Lightning wise, Arshes Nei can use the 2 million volt "Ryott" spell, can use "Lightning of Hell's Wolves" to enhance her fists with lightning, and can summon lightspeed moving Lightning Elements with "Guilbert." Her most powerful lightning spell is "Tesla" which is considered the strongest lightning spell of all, creating lightning hundreds of meters long. Firewise she can use the spell "Exodus" which causes fire from Gehenna the deepest part of Hell to surround the caster, burning away at enemies. This flame is 20,000 degrees, temperatures above those found on white dwarf stars. In terms of wind magic, Arshes can summon a tornado with Dee N' Tear which actively restrains and slices at enemies with razor winds and can use Megadeth to control the opposing forces of Air and Earth. This creates an earthquake and a thunderstorm along with an explosion the size of a large fortress.

In terms of other offense magic she can use "Anselm" to create light arrows that hone in on an opponent's weak points and her strongest attack spell "Halloween." This can only be cast during certain moon phases, but causes a brief energy burst from the caster's hands comparable to the atomizing teraton level power of Black Sabbath. Beyond that she can fly with Rei Von, can create illusions up to and including whole illusory environments, and can use Def Lepard to create a portal to another dimension absorbing all magic used against her making magic attacks impossible. 

In terms of weaknesses, Halloween can only be cast at certain periods, spells take a few seconds to cast due to requiring an invocation, and Arshes is seemingly the most fragile of the Riders without Spell Bound or natural durability, though still obviously above fodder.

Abigail is the Dark Priest and master of dark magic and necromancy.

Abigail is one of the Wisemen who made themselves like the Elves, with an extended lifespan (he himself is over 400), an increase in spiritual power, and a resistance to charming magic. He is also a superintellect who merged his brain with computers. Even if his body is blown up he can regen from backup copies of his brain, though this is a lengthy process. He can also completely restore and regenerate himself with a magical girl henshin.

Fittingly for his intellect and technopathic nature he uses the most pieces of equipment. His tentacle armor makes him impervious to all lightning magic even as strong as Dark Schneider's, he has a magic mallet he can use to make things grow, a magic bat that sends things flying a far distance, and a morningstar that can awaken sleeping people but instantly kill those already awake. He also had, though it's not standard equipment the Three Cursed Items. The Devilish Hammer is a hammer spiritually imbued with the Earth Element capable of creating city-busting earthquakes. Satan's Ring can absorb energy from an entire country to feed into the hammer and open a black hole to another dimension and regenerate the user even if they're reduced to a skeleton. The Demonic Armor grants immunity to all physical and magical attacks up to country level. Those 3 together can create the mecha form Omega Abigail which can tank country level attacks and use a large number of powerful attacks like a flamethrower and a laser.

In terms of magic Abigail is a powerful necromancer able to summon up a legion of the undead. In terms of offense magic he can shoot a light beam shoot from his head with "Thor", can summon tentacles from the ground to bind enemies with "Heretic", can banish demons or erase weak demons outright with "Wasp" and can summon a lot of starving ghosts to consume his foes with "Forbidden." His most powerful offensive attack is the spell "Blind Guardian" which creates a cage of thorns that rip at the opponent and if they do not die, it induces them into sleep. This attack was able to even somewhat hurt the Demon Anthrax.

Outside of direct offense magic Abigail can cast "Accursed" which implants a blue nail in the target. If they do not obey the caster, the nail turns progressively red until it turns completely red where it turns them into a toad. He also has "Regent Gentle Descent" which slows his fall and cushions his impact and "Spell Bound", a general shield against all kinds of magic and physical force that would require a nuke to break, an imitation of the Angels' natural "Dispel Bounds." Similarly he can create a dome of light with "Extrem," a high class cleric spell. 

However Abigail can't fly, and his spellcaster takes a few seconds to speak the invocations. Also in his Omega Abigail Mecha Form, his head is left exposed and is a weak spot.

Kal Su is a master of ice and water magic and half ice dragon. He is considered the strongest of the Riders of Havoc.

Kal is a extremly skilled ice mage so intimiately connected with ice magic from his heritage that merely an emotional outburst from him can cause it to snow. He obviously can freeze things being able to freeze entire castles with "Biskaya" or "Final Cold," and can encase even elder giants in blocks of ice with "Thanatos", an ice that is immune to conventional melting. He can create ice bolts with "Tankad" and while he can use "Spell Bounds," he can also use "Danjig" to create a magical ice shield that can reflect magical attacks back at the caster. With "Access" he can summon draconic constructs of water that can crush entire batallions under the weight of millions of tons of pressure, an attack particularly good against large quantifies of enemies. He can also summon frost wolves and snow serpents with "Wy Anti" and  "Ice Snake" respectively. His most powerful spell "Testament" traps an enemy in a Spell Bound and lowers the temperature within to Absolute Zero, annihilating the atoms within. This attack even threatened the great wizard Dark Schneider and could do damage to Anthrax. Kal Su later learned the ability to spam "Testament."

Outside of ice magic, he can fly with "Rei Bon", can teleport and can cast illusions at least on par with Arshes Nei. Just from releasing his magical energy he can cause people to explode. He also from heritage has a natural resistance to heat to the point even Dark Schneider's country level fire magic was resisted and he has such a good natural stamina, endurance, and regeneration that when his mother tried to kill him as a young child, literally in the middle of cleaving his head in two, he was able to react instinctively and kill her with ice magic, saving himself.

Kal Su also has a blade called the Ice Falchion that can match the Raijinken in power, and is obviously ice themed, can freeze giant quantities of water. Kal Su is also known for his extremely strong tactical sense, presiding as the leader of the Riders after Dark Schneider's demise.

Kal Su lacks many weaknesses being able to cast his strongest spell without invocation. That said, he's not that great a hand to hand fighter.

Beyond this, all four of the Riders of Havoc are occasionally depicted with the ability to break the fourth wall, as Bastard!! is partly a comedic manga, and have a strongly developed ability to support each other in combat on the instances they're actually on the same side. 

Name: Riders of Havoc, the Four Divine Kings

Origin: Bastard!!

Powers and Abilities: Superhuman Stats, High Degree of Combat Skill, Occasional Fourth-Wall Breaking | Masterful Ninja, Disguise Power, Afterimage Creation, Ki/Light Manipulation, Regen (Low-Mid), Wind Attacks, Anti-Intangibility, Can destroy the soul | Longevity (Over 100 years old), Mastery of Lightning, Fire, and Wind Magic, Can open up portals to other dimensions/anti-magic shields, Light Manipulation, Energy Projection, Illusion Creation | Longevity (Over 100 years old), Master of Necromancy and Black Magic, Technopathy, Magical Items, Summoning (Undead Legions and Starving Ghosts), Regen (at least High-Mid over time), Binding, Light Manipulation, Sleep Inducement, Plant Manipulation, Transmutation (can turn people into frogs with Accursed), Forcefield Creation, Impervious to Lightning and Resistance to Charming | Longevity (Over 100 years old), Mastery of Water and Ice Magic, Freezing, Absolute Zero Cold, Atomic Annihilation, Summoning (Wolfs and Serpents of Ice, Dragons of Water), Superhuman stamina, endurance, and regeneration, Flight, Teleportation, Illusion Creation, can make people explode with his magic, Resistance to Heat

Weaknesses: Not very smart, no magic | Somewhat fragile, can't usually cast Halloween, spells require invocation | Can't fly, some items aren't standard equipment, Omega Abigail leaves his head exposed, spells require invocation | Not a great hand-to-hand fighter

Destructive Capacity: All reach at least City Level, Arshes Nei's Halloween and Kal Su's Testament reach Country Level

Range: Several Kilometers | Likely Several Kilometers | Several Kilometers | Several Kilometers

Speed: Hypersonic, Likely Relativistic Reactions, Lightspeed Attack Speed with Celestial Flash and Guilbert as well as likely with Anselm and Thor

Durability: Arshes Nei, Abigail, and Kal Su are Large Building+ to City Block Level physically. Gara as well as Spell Bound Abigai and Kal Su are City Level. Omega Abigail is Country Level and Kal Su is Country Level against heat attacks.

Stamina: Gara is at least peak human, possibly superhuman (recovered from "fatal" injures in a day. The others are superhuman from their Elvish and Draconic heritages.

Standard Equipment: Murasame | Raijinken | Varies | Ice Falchion

Intelligence: Masterful Ninja, but not very smart otherwise | High (mastered magic at a young age from Dark Schneider) | Likely superhuman (Is one of the Wisemen and has melded his brain with a computer) | Extremely skilled tactician and learned magic from Dark Schneider at the age of 12.

Key: All | Gara | Arshes | Abigail | Kal Su

So how would the Riders of Havoc do in other verses?

In the DC Universe the Riders of Havoc are in a strange place power-wise. There's not many city level characters in DC and for the most part they'd either one-shot or be one-shot, although they would be in roughly the right speed tier for the lower tiers. I think they'd have pretty good fights with some of the most broken DC "street tiers." Particularly some of the Justice League Dark Members I think could have interesting one on one battles with them like Nightmare Nurse and Andrew Bennet. 

I think Kal Su and Arshes Nei illusion abilities might prove especially wrong as while super senses are fairly common in DC, pretty much anyone without super senses and some with won't resist that save characters obviously way out of their tier. I think Abigail's technopathy may also help if he can hack into some of DC's advanced tech although he might be a bit out of his depth with technopaths like Cyborg running around. 

In the Marvel Comics, the Riders of Havoc would be roughly on the tier of really powerful street-levelers physically like Spider-Man who scale to various megaton feats. They even have a few specialized country level techniques much like say Spider-Man's Mark of Kaine. While they're on the slower side for raw movement speed, Gara's light-catching feat suggests they may have reaction time to be able to fight them.

Overall I think the Riders of Havoc would fit much better in the Marvel Universe due to the far larger number of "mid tiers" in the Marvel Universe. They'd be roughly a team of low metas individually, each roughly able to match one for one one of the upper end of street tiers, and together plausibly able to take down a mid meta especially given their teamwork. Of particular note I would think would be Gara's soul destruction technique, Abigail's blind Guardian and Demonic Armor if he has it, and Kal Su's freezing in general. Working together I think they might be able to defeat someone like a weaker armor Iron Man or Human Torch (Kal Su in particular could probably withstand Johnny's normal attacks, though not his supernova.)

The Riders of Havoc, or three of them, would be fairly strong magic-users in the Marvel universe and be be a fairly powerful team working together, on par with the likes of something like the Sinister Six in terms of raw power, if not somewhat stronger, but with even stronger hax abilities and better coordination, teamwork, and skill.

In the Dungeons and Dragons-verse, a verse that inspired a good amount of Dungeons and Dragons, the Riders of Havoc would fit in very well as a high level PC team, given that they would be around the level of adult dragons who can create blizzards and storms for miles around and PCs can dodge spells moving at lightspeed. They must find the verse a bit difficult at first, depending on the setting they're dropped in as some have rather plentiful powerful magic artifacts and large arsenals of spells, that said while they don't have perhaps as large an arsenal, their arsenal is not just as strong but arguably more strong then most in the verse would be.

They also hypothetically have the ability to gain equipment and magical abilities in the verse at an accelerated rate much like an adventuring party of similar level. They also have some abilities that would be considered particularly strong with Halloween and Testament being more like epic level spells comparable to Mordenkainen's Ice Age magic. The only thing they might particularly struggle with is any enemy with anti-magical ability as only Kal Su really focuses on non-magical abilities, although Arshes can somewhat help in melee. A Dragon with intelligence for Gara, Breath attack for Arshes and anti-magic for Abigail and Kal Su could be a real danger though if Abigail gets all equipment I'm pretty sure Omega Abigail could win.

A verse Bastard!! was compared to a lot as classic overpowered verses, in the Saint Seiya-verse, the Riders of Havoc would mostly be compared with the low tiers of the verse. Compared to Bronze Saints they're at a general large power disadvantage with even basic Cosmo Wielders able to reach gigaton level power with atomizing cosmo requiring basically Halloween or ... fittingly enough the atomic destroying Testament to kill with raw force. However the Riders of Havoc would be at a speed advantage for most of the time as Bronze Saints typically move around the speed of sound, although with cosmo amps can reach at least hypersonic speeds to compete. This means against the Bronze Saints the Riders would have to focus on avoiding attacks and finding a way around the Saints durability and general resistance.

Gara doesn't have super much he can do other then distract against them as while he can go seventh sense speed against them, they can resist Celestial Flash and have basic astral resistance as Ikki's soul destroying fists don't kill Bronze Saints with each strike. However Arshes can use illusion magic, Abigail has several things he can do in particular use Sleep Inducement, and Kal Su I think would be particularly strong here given he has freezing abilities that likely would act like Hyoga's were in the first arc, he has other good hax, and he can spam Testament that can actually one-shot. Overall they'd be a formidable team, that would be difficult for most Bronze Saints to fight.

As a team they're probably collectively Silver Saint Tier. Testament probably can't one-shot a Silver Saint given they scale to teraton level+ (although given only the Seventh Sense can reach absolute zero, maybe it can), and a Silver Saint compares more favorably in speed against them, able to amp up to lightning speed. A lot of their abilities should work similarly however, and as a team they could plausibly beat a Silver Saint, especially a more arrogant one like Lizard Misty.

In another of the quintessential dark fantasy manga, Berserk, the Riders of Havoc would actually function VERY similarly to how they do in their own verse. They would be leagues above most of the verse's fantastical monsters, and be seen as basically demigod-type entities although nothing compared to the cosmic entities functioning in the background like the Idea of Evil. Where it would be interesting is compared to the Godhand.

The 5 Godhand are apostles of the Idea of Evil, former humans who denounced their humanity to enter their transformed state. The Godhand are comparable to Griffith who simply created the city of Falconia and Ganishka's passive storm caused by his existence. They're also much superior to Guts who scales to a ~Mach 6.44 feat. As such the Riders are actually roughly on the same level of stats as the Godhand. 

However the Godhand have much stronger hax abilities than the Riders with things like probability manipulation, causality manipulation, reality-warping and so on. In this way the Riders could be seen as sort of an anti-thesis to the Godhands, demonic-chaotic  and rebellious compared to emissaries of falsely divine order. Especially given their ability to coordinate, I could see the Riders of Havoc killing one of the Godhands together, and possibly being able to incite rebellion against them.