@pyrofn: I'm so profoundly interested in psychic powers, especially those of Jean Grey and Legion. I've seen you also enjoy discussions on psychics. What are your thoughts on those characters? I have yet to read all the material on them. Same with Franklin Richards, he and Legion don't seem to appear that often.
Side question: Who do you think are the most powerful psychics, and what makes you believe that, like what feats of power. I'm very interested in your opinion on this.
.....A very good question and very loaded one at that. I don’t represent the majority, but I have my own opinions. With that in mind, I think I will bring in others as well to speak their minds about this, if it’s alright. Note I won’t really include reality warpers, but I will mention off-hand the psychics with reality warping.
@del_torro:, @koays:, @professorrespect:, @marvelfan1992: I know he may not have asked you, but I know you all are just about as knowledgable as I am, some if possibly even more.
I also recommend looking through the Psychic Respect Thread List to look over who you are most curious about in depth, since there is a lot of history that I can’t cover in a simple summary. These threads were compiled by a number of individuals devoted on looking through the psychics issue by issue in comics and noting them at their best.
Psychic Respect Thread List
That out of the way, who do I think are the top psychics? That question comes in two categories: God Tier and High Tier.
God Tier Psychics are basically the psychics who operate outside the realm of possibility, performing feats that border on reality warping with power outclassing your average high tier.
These individuals are the Phoenix Force (and its hosts), Nate Grey, Legion, most cosmic beings and gods, and Savior Cable.
•The Phoenix is the nexus of all psionic energy that does, will ever, and has existed in the multiverse. Note that not every host of the Phoenix has access to its full power and the Phoenix Force itself is a very vulnerable entity without a host. As far as who is the most powerful avatar/host, only Jean Grey herself has ever accessed the full potential of the Phoenix, with Rachel Summers coming in the closest after Jean.
•Nate Grey, after the Phoenix, is who I presume is the most powerful god-tier personally. Genetic offspring of Jean Grey and Scott Summers creates by AoA Sinister, he by far has the most feats and statements operating at a god-tier level. His downfall is that he has intervals where he burns out, he lacks experience compared to your average high tier, and his current incarnation is amped by an alternate object. With that in mind, if you were to look at his RT, you could clearly see a collection of feats that tell full well where his potential would take him if his powers were to stabilize and not kill him/ disappear on him when the plot sees fit.
•Legion is who aims say is next in line. Son of Charles Xavier, this particular Omega has the ability to generate any power at an Omega Level, including Telepathy and Telekinesis. His comparisons telepathically are usually scaled off Xavier and his tk has taken on entire teams of X-Men with minimal difficulty. His downfall comes in the form of his multiple personality disorder, where every power is stuck to a certain personality. There have been times in his history where an outside source regulated his powers to one single personality, usually for malicious reasons. These times characterize David as an unstoppable force.
•I won’t go into depth on the gods and cosmic entities, since it’s too broad of a category to name. But know that it is these individuals that dictate the forces of nature across different dimensions and universe that give this tier its name.
•Savior Cable is noted as Cable’s most powerful form, where the Techno Organic Virus doesn’t overtake his entire system, thereby forcing him to use his powers overall to thwart its threats against his life. With this limitation gone, Cable is seen producing planet-wide telepathic feats as he simultaneously produces high level tk feats, such as levitating an entire city while he uses his telepathy.
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The next category, high tier psychics, are basically the tier where you have the best of your average psychics. These psychics include individuals like Charles Xavier, Emma Frost, Jean Grey, Rachel Summers, Cassandra Nova, Shadow King, and Exodus.....fine, I guess Quentin Quire is also named, but he is....a loaded subject.
•Jean Grey currently is considered in canon as the most powerful telepath on the planet with high order telekinesis. Her best telepathy feat has her producing psionic illusions across the planet as a subconscious cry for help while her conscious mind is amnesiac and trapped by the Phoenix Force. Add her telekinesis to the mix where she goes from using telekinesis from far distances to powerful shields to molecular tk. The downfall is that Jean’s feats are rather....passive. Jean’s approach is usually with non-lethal methods, which usually go against her when the enemy in question is willing to kill.
•Charles Xavier is the next land is usually the contender who people side with if they don’t believe Jean is the most powerful. It’s a fair assessment since he was the one who held that title before Jean for the longest time, giving him all-around more feats comparatively and even having direct telepathy feats off of Jean herself to propel his claim to fame. The downfall is that he lacks telekinesis feats. He is in fact, barely getting any to begin with these days, making him solely rely on his telepathy for reasons why he is a top psi.
•Shadow King is a rival to Xavier, constantly the one engaging in battle with Xavier and planning ways to get around him. He has direct global feats and multiple instances of psychics below Xavier succumbing to Shadow King’s Power. Problem? He fluctuates heavily and mostly relies on planning and scaling to Xavier. Also, his telekinesis, like Xavier’s, is basically non-existent in most stories, making him solely rely on telepathy feats that are subpar to begin with when they don’t involve Xavier.
•Cassandra Nova is another one would consider a rival to Xavier, though in a less direct way. Granted, she has antagonized Xavier before, but she is less reliant on Xavier and more about causing mayhem to everyone else. She even has telekinesis feats that compete with Jean Grey herself and telepathy feats compared directly to Jean, making her an incredible threat as psi. This is due to the fact that Nova copied Charles Xavier‘s DNA to mimic his psychic abilities, which make her so much of a threat that even a psychic on Cerebro aren‘t safe from her, despite literally having a global amp to their powers. The downfall is that her best feats are reliant mostly on possession and less on actual telepathic feats. She also suffers from a case of scaling to Xavier, like Shadow King, to get her by.
•Emma Frost, by far the most skilled telepath even compared to the likes of Xavier. With power rivaling Xavier, she has the most varied feats of any high tier, with the best claim of thinking outside the box with more difficult enemies comparatively to Xavier‘s usual overpower them. She has feats off of perhaps every high tier on the list, except Shadow King. Her problem is that she is directly compared to Xavier before and considered less powerful. Not only that, but she is only a mere telepath. No tk to help her case in this contest.
•Rachel Summers is Jean Grey’s alternate universe daughter, with the same powerset of telepathy and telekinesis. She has statements directly from Xavier claiming her to be one of the most powerful telepaths outside of himself, being considered more of a threat than one of the Phoenix Five. Not only that, but her feats regarding telekinesis seem to trump Jean’s in deadliness, going for blowing peoples heads off, molecular tk for a form of attack on multiple occasions, and using that same level of tk to produce a miniature black hole. Her problem? She has had statements about her power during a time when Jean was dead and Emma was out-of-the-picture, leaving only her and Xavier as a comparison. Then when Jean did come back, she gained a direct statements against her in comparison to Jean and Emma eventually came back, which hurt her placement on the tier where before, she could have been considered directly under Xavier. In my opinion, Rachel possibly has the least problems of any high tier on the list given her natural growth.
•Exodus is considered to date the most powerful telekinetic on the list, with high order telepathy on par with Emma Frost at one point. His feats range from multitasking putting a shield around a city and condensing it while producing other telepathic and telekinetic feats in that same story arc. Later, he solos an entire X-Men team while dueling Rachel Summers on the Astral Plane, leaving her only able to do that much to him while he was fighting the X-Men on the physical plane. With direct feats of kicking Jean Grey out of his head, stalemating Emma, dueling Rachel Summers, and evening going toe-to-toe with Xavier, he has good feats to support the Omega Level argument. The problem? His feats fluctuate based around other characters faith in him. Seriously, his power levels go from soloing entire teams to being defeated by an amnesiac Xavier fresh out of brain surgery.
•Quentin Quire......*sigh* In technicality, he can qualify based on the fact that currently, he holds a place on the Omega Level List as Omega Telepath alongside Jean Grey herself. He is a character known to have feats of telepathy directly over Emma Frost, Telekinetically holding together a decaying corpse while fighting off attackers, and a psionic construct of a gun he can use the same way Betsy Braddock (known widely as Psylocke and currently named Captain Britain) uses her psi-knives and swords. His problem? He sucks. Seriously, he has feats over Emma one moment, then gets stomped by the three-in-one Stepford Cuckoos the next. For a little reference, the three-in-one Stepford Cuckoos are triplet clones of Emma Frost with low level telepathy individual who combine their powers for greater effect. That obviously puts Emma above them, yet these girls trump Quentin Quire easily on multiple occasions. It could simply be a matter of inexperience and arrogance on Quentin’s part, but that is honestly a fault of his character that will in my opinion keep him from ever contending with the above high tiers......yet, if I ma to be fair, he has statements for him being a possible contenders and several feats, so make of it what you will.
Thats my analysis on the contenders for the most powerful psis. If you have gotten lost because of my rambling, my thought process is that the Phoenix is the top god-tier and Jean is the top high tier. I named the contenders though to help you make your own case, whether it agrees or disagrees with me. That in turn is also why I tagged others. To bring their thoughts in and help you form your own conclusion. Hope this wasn’t too long and thanks for your time.
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