In a previous post I discussed who is the coolest superhero according to textual descriptions. For fans of comics and animation, perhaps the question of who is the most powerful superhero character, not only in Marvel and DC Comics, but across all different fantasy universes, stirs more debates. But judging from tabular and textual data from the Superheroes NLP dataset, it turns out Beyonder should claim the crown.
At first glance, the answer should be straight forward. The dataset, scraped from SuperHeroDb (SHDb) about two years ago, does list the Overall Scores, which represents SHDb's assessment of the overall power of each character. But one tricky point is the overall_score column has mixed data types. Apart from numerical values, it has 107 characters listed as "-", presumably meaning "not available", and 18 characters marked as "∞", meaning having infinite power. If we rank the values directly, it would be ordered as strings, with "∞" at the top, followed by "94", "9", "89", "87". For convenience of processing and visualization, I turn them all into numerical values. As the original numerical values range from 1 to 237, I set "-" to 0, and "∞" to 299.
Ranking the Infinite Scored Characters by Power Stats and Superpower Counts
So the most powerful character should be among the 18 who have infinite power. Some may say we can stop at this point, as SHDb has determined they are equally infinitely powerful. But if we probe further, how can we rank infinity? A handy way is to look into auxiliary features. In the dataset there are two sets of features which can be useful. The first is the six power statistics (intelligence_score, strength_score, speed_score, durability_score, power_score and combat_score), which range from 0 to 100. I add them together to get a "combined_score" to summarize them. The second is to count the number of superpowers listed in the "superpowers" column that each character possesses.
But now we have two ways to rank the infinite class, the first is to rank their combined scores first, if equal then rank their superpower counts. It would make Golden Master's Mech from LEGO's Ninjago the most powerful character, who have perfect power scores and 106 types of superpowers.
On the other hand, if we give priority to superpower counts over combined scores, Black Alice from DC Comics would rank first. Her combined score is 565 out of 600, but has 126 types of superpower listed. In fact her only superpower that matters but not clearly listed is that she can temporarily usurp the magical powers of any being.
But a question arises. Does ranking by combined score or superpower counts follow the internal logic of the database? If we do a scatter plot of the overall score against the combined score, we can see most of the characters have overall scores less than 50, no matter how high their combined scores. Among characters who have perfect power stats, the overall scores vary from 27 to 299 (infinite). And among the infinite class, the combined score can be as low as 550.
And the scatter plot of the overall score against superpower counts shows that, though in general characters who have more types of superpowers have higher overall scores, there is a large divergence in overall scores. Characters in the infinite class have 23 to 126 types of superpowers.
The Exclusive Superpowers of the Infinite Class
So we can infer that the most important factor of the overall score of a character is not power stats or number of superpowers, but the type of superpowers he or she possesses, and evidently not every type of superpower is equal in its contribution to the overall score. So we have to look into superpowers.
A comparison of the superpowers that the infinite and the non-infinite class possess shows that, omnipotent, apotheosis, orbing, salvation and willpower manipulation are the five superpowers exclusively possessed by the infinite class. Among the five one, omnipotent, which means unlimited power, is possessed by four of the characters which have infinite power. They are Abraxas, Eru Iluvatar, Life Entity and The Lord of Light, respectively the supreme being in Marvel, J.R.R. Tolkien, DC Comics and George R. R. Martin's universe. The other four types of exclusive superpowers record only a single instance each, and are less certain to be the sufficient conditions of infinite power.
Ranking by Probability Score of Classification Model
As those exclusive superpowers only account for 7 of the 18 characters in the infinite class, we may conclude that, perhaps with the exception of omnipotent, what makes one has infinite power lies in the combinations of superpowers. To find out what are the responsible superpowers, we may use some machine learning classification model. I choose logistic regression for it's highly interpretable and it gives a probability score, which can be viewed as a measurement on who has more of the "infinite class superpowers".
Since the purpose of this modeling is for analysis, not prediction, and the samples of infinite class are too few. I do not split the data into train and test sets, but cross validation shows it has a decent f1 score of 0.73. The coefficients of the model indicate that omnipotent is the most important factor, others include reality warping, vitakinesis, omnilingualism, matter absorption and so on, while strength score and combat score have moderate importance.
The probability scores of the 18 infinite class characters are very close, from 0.987650 to 0.999922, where Golden Master's Mech edges out at the top. While the Mech does not have omnipotent, it has important superpowers like reality warping, matter absorption, nigh-Omnipotent and nigh-omnipresent.
Scoring From Regression Model
Another approach is to do a regression to approximate the formula or algorithm the SHDb used to calculate the overall scores, then extrapolate into the characters of the infinite class. Linear regression is chosen for its interpretability, and Elastic-net regulation is used to reduce the number of zero coefficients, which should be closer to the case.
The possibility that SHDb's formula has interactions of variables, and the arbitrary setting of 299 overall scores for the infinite class should limit the accuracy of the linear model. But the Elastic-net model has a R squared score of 0.965, and in cross validation has a root mean squared error of 12.24, should be regarded as decent. In this model omnipotent has a weight of near 160 points in the overall score, while other high scoring superpowers include nigh-omnipotent, omniscient, causality_manipulation and so on.
In this second model, the omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient Eru Iluvatar gets the highest score, Beyonder the second and Golden Master's Mech the fourth.
Textual Description Score
As the two models have different results, we may find further clues from textual descriptions to determine who is most powerful. After a look at the descriptions of the 18 characters, I decide to use a term matcher to score powerfulness, with each mention of positive keywords get 1 point, and each mention of negative keywords get -1.5 point, on the ground that a mention of vulnerability hurts more on the status of invincibility than a mention of powerfulness. While this kind of word marcher cannot be very accurate, it serves as a rough estimation of the powerfulness in description.
The positive keywords are:
"most powerful", "supreme", "ultimate", "omnipotence", "omnipotent", "immortality" ,"limitless", "unlimited" and "surpassing".
And the negative keyword are:
"limited", "nigh-omnipotence", "second to", "defeated", "weakness", "weaknesses", "weaker", "destroyed", "destroy him", "destroying", "second most powerful" and "restricted".
Under this scoring scheme, though Beyonder is described as being "nearly destroyed" once and weakened in later versions, the 5 mentions of omnipotence of the original Beyonder compensate that to get him 2 points, equals to the score of Man Of Miracles. Eru's description is rather bland and gets only 1 point, while the Mech is said to be destroyed costs him to get -0.5 point at the end.
Beyonder’s description:
Within a pocket realm in the Negative Zone, the omnipotent POS_KEYWORD , enigmatic Beyonders created discrete packets of reality-altering energy that could be accessed by others and contained within force fields as Cosmic Cubes (and Containment Units of other shapes). One created by Skrulls eventually evolved into the sentient Shaper of Worlds; one created by A.I.M. was manipulated by a number of forces on Earth before it evolved into Kubik. When Owen Reece accessed one of these energy packets via an electromagnetic accident, part of the energy mutated him into the powerful Molecule Man. The remaining energy gradually gained intelligence and became the Beyonder, who studied life by transporting a number of superhumans to his creation Battleworld and later by traveling to Earth and interacting directly with its residents. The Beyonder remained unfulfilled and eventually faked his death, creating a new realm over which he acted as a god. Eventually, however, the Shaper and Kubik revealed the truth to the Beyonder about his incompleteness, and he willingly merged with Reece to become a new, complete Cosmic Cube. The Cube removed its components from Reece, expelled him back to Earth, and evolved into Kosmos, taking a female form in hopes of avoiding the violent tendencies of its past incarnation. Kubik tutored Kosmos in the nature of humanity and the universe, exploring the Celestials and other cosmic entities, as well as performing experiments on the Fantastic Four. After Reece, who had managed to restore his powers, lost his lover, he went mad and assaulted Kosmos, drawing out the essence of the Beyonder and attacking it. Reece nearly destroyed NEG_KEYWORD the Beyonder, but Kubik, who was actually falling in love with Kosmos, convinced Reece to restore the Beyonder's essence to Kosmos to save her life. Kubik and Kosmos parted ways under unrevealed circumstances, and the Beyonder's personality sought dominance over Kosmos. She somehow became mortal but her diminished capacities and heightened sensations drove her mad. After slaughtering 64,000 Shi'ar colonists, she was incapacitated by the Imperial Guard telepath Oracle and placed in stasis in the Kyln space prison. Now known as the Maker, she regained consciousness but has only fragments of memory. She caused great chaos in the Kyln until subdued by Thanos and his new ally Skreet. Realizing that slaying Kosmos would unleash the Beyonder on the universe, Thanos shut down her mind but arranged to have her body kept alive forever via neurology-exempt nanocellular regeneration, serving as a living prison to the mad omnipotent POS_KEYWORD within her. In all of his versions, The Beyonder has the general ability to manipulate reality. The original Beyonder was considered to be the most powerful POS_KEYWORD being in the multiverse, having power surpassing POS_KEYWORD Cosmic Entities, such as The Living Tribunal and Eternity. He was capable of causing a multiversal wide destruction, and took over the entire earth with a mere thought. He also had vast psionic abilities, which enabled him to scan the minds of the entire world,[22] neutralize psychic probes from powerful telepaths,[23] erase the memories about himself from every human being on the planet,[1] among other abilities. His cognitive capacity is such that he can assimilate knowledge from the entire multiverse.[24] He can also easily change states of matter, and has a host of other different powers. He is endowed with superhuman strength of such an extent that it is potentially incalculable. Using his ability to manipulate reality, he can, in effect, regenerate damage done to his body by simply willing it repaired. Additional powers include teleportation, flight, the ability to choose his own physical resistances and attributes, as well as the ability to move others from one place to another via teleportation, such as the heroes and villains he moved through spacetime to his 'Battleworld' construct in the original Secret Wars. However, The Beyonder, went through several retcons, which significantly reduced his power. The retcons made The Beyonder arguably weaker NEG_KEYWORD than many Cosmic Entities, but he still retained his virtually infinite reality warping powers. Inherent in his near- limitless POS_KEYWORD psionic abilities the Beyonder has the potential to affect reality in a manner that could, in theory, simulate virtually any power.
The being known as Mother is the creator of the universe. There is no being greater than she, and her powers appear to be limitless POS_KEYWORD . She is known as Mother to her children, of which there are more than there are numbers, but she is neither male nor female. In fact, she often appears as males if the situation suits her. She has appeared as many forms throughout the ages and can appear differently to different people simultaneously. Of her countless children, her two greatest disappointments were entrusted with the planet Earth. These two beings, whom we know as God and Satan, have squabbled and fought for ages. Their incessant bickering developed into complete hatred for one another and eventually all out war. Ordinarily, Mother would have allowed them to continue fighting as they saw fit (as she rarely gets involved with the affairs of her children). These two petty and hateful children, however, despite their never-ending feud managed to create something beautiful and wholly unique in the universe – mankind. Mankind was created by God to serve his will, but his creation was tainted by his hateful brother Satan. Man was given free will so as to disobey God’s commands. The combined influence of both God and Satan led to the unique creation that is a human being - a creature capable of boundless artistic expression and limitless POS_KEYWORD love, a creature which Mother deemed important enough to protect personally. During Armageddon, she appears to Spawn in the guise of the Man of Miracles, acting as his guide so that he may fulfill his role of stopping the Apocalypse and saving humanity from the forces of her two children. NAEru Iluvatar’s description:
Eru is the supreme POS_KEYWORD deity of Arda. He was the single creator, above the Valar, but has delegated almost all direct action within Eä to the Ainur, including the shaping of the Arda. NAGolden Master’s Mech’s desccription:
While some of the Nindroids under Cryptor retrieved the Golden Weapons from the comet where they landed as a result of Garmadon's time travel exploits, Pythor led the others in claiming Borg Tower so as to adapt the assembly line for the Overlord's purposes. The Golden Master's Mech (also known as the Ultimate POS_KEYWORD Weapon) was a mech that was created from the remains of the Golden Weapons that were recovered by the Nindroids. Built to wreak havoc on New Ninjago City, the mech allowed the Golden Master to unleash his sacred power on the Ninja and the people of Ninjago. In the ensuing conflict, the Golden Master leveled buildings and caused widespread destruction. The mech would eventually create a giant web across Borg Tower, where the Ninja made their final stand against the Golden Master. When he incapacitated the Ninja and their masters, Zane sacrificed himself to freeze the Golden Master and his mech, destroying NEG_KEYWORD both in the process. the powers from golden master with mech are added
Combined Final Score
After the construction of three measurements of powerfulness, perhaps we should combine them into a final score. As the three are in different ranges, I first standardize the three scores and use Min-Max scaling to transform the range of the scores from 0 to 1, then take averages of the three transformed scores to make the final "weighted score".
Beyonder edges out Eru Iluvatar in the final score, and also becomes the most powerful character in Marvel's universe. While Beyonder is not listed to be omnipotent in the dataset, he has enough high scoring superpowers to make him taking the third and the second spots in the classification and regression models, and the text score propels him to the top spot. But there is one more issue: Beyonder is listed as neutral in alignment. If we restrict to the "good" superheros, then the most powerful comes to Eru Iluvatar. And Black Alice is ranked as the most powerful in DC Comics' Universe.
Coda
Apparently SHDb has overhauled the scoring system and the assessment of many characters since this dataset was scraped from it about two years ago. At present the list of infinite class characters is nearly completely different from this dataset, only Eru Iluvatar is on both lists. The overall score now can be in millions or even billions, while the six power stats can be infinite. And TIER is introduced in the calculation, where characters in TIER infinite have infinite overall scores. SHDb also reveals the present formula of calculating the overall score, which is quite complex:
( INT^1.3 + (STR*0.5 )^2 + (SPE*0.5)^2 + DUR^1.6 + (POW + (SPS*SPL))^2 + COM^1.8 ) ^ TIER
where
INT: intelligence
STR: Strength
SPE: Speed
DUR: Durability
POW: Power
SPS: Superpower Score
SPL: Superpower Level
COM: Combat
And a note states that:
Every Super Power has a score (SPS) that is used to calculate the Class. Each Super Power also has 3 levels (SPL). The level is set when connecting that Super Power to a character. The level determines the final score, of the Super Power, being used in the calculation.
So, what’s the point of doing all these analyses, when the data is based on a fictional database, and it has already changed? I think even if for a fictionally created database, the data in it are not arbitrary and follow some logic, the job of a data scientist is to see and analyze data as it is and try to discover this internal logic.
Original Dataset from Kaggle and Github
Source Code: Github and Kaggle
