Summary

Buddy Baker is the Animal Man, the chosen protector of The Red, the force which connects all animal life. He is both a family man and a super-hero, often struggling to keep balance between the two.

Powers and Stats

Tier: At least 9-B, possibly Low 2-C

Name: Bernhard "Buddy" Baker, Animal Man

Origin: DC Comics

Gender: Male

Age: Unknown

Classification: Human, Avatar of The Red

Powers and Abilities: Superhuman Physical Characteristics, Animal Manipulation, Flight, Transformation, Breaking the Fourth Wall, Regeneration (Low-Mid, via channeling the power of earthworms), Flight, Enhanced Senses (By copying bats and dogs), Fire Manipulation, Water Manipulation, Sound Manipulation, Electricity Manipulation, Light Manipulation, Energy Manipulation, Healing, Duplication (Through copying bacteria), Disease Manipulation (Infected enemies with Black Death), Possession (Can possess animals after dying), Power Mimicry (Can copy the powers of any animal in the universe), Illusion Creation (Induced mass hallucinations upon an entire jury), Immersion (Can enter the plot of a comic^[1]), and Acausality (Type 1; Was unaffected by the Crisis on Infinite Earths^[2]), Resistance to Gravity Manipulation, Existence Erasure (Illusions Buddy created can erase characters), Death Manipulation (Cast direct death on his opponent, killing them), Creation (Created a universe using the M-Field)

Attack Potency: At least Wall level (Can tear metal walls and gates apart, destroyed a clone of Mirror Master while weakened, knocked a T-Rex out, punched an elevator out of a building, smashed the hood of a car by jumping on it, hit B'wana Beast hard enough to damage concrete), possibly Universe level+ (Created a universe by using the M-Field^[3])

Speed: Varies from Superhuman (Ran at 75 MPH while copying an ant, can replicate an impala's speed) to Massively FTL+ (Dodged an attack from Overman and flew intergalactic distances while channeling Sun-Eater's power)

Lifting Strength: Class 1 to Class 5 (Able to lift cars and jeeps)

Striking Strength: Wall level

Durability: Wall level

Stamina: Unknown

Range: Varies

Standard Equipment: None

Intelligence: Unknown

Weaknesses: Suffers from an existential crisis

Notes:

The possibility of upgrading Animal Man to Tier 1 has been discussed with regard to the description of (1) the Lifeweb, (2) scaling to Antagon (who may have pulled creation into the void), (3) creating a universe, as well as (4) the mention of Bohm's theory of implicate order. However, it has been rejected due to the lack of direct evidence for how that information would justify a Tier 1 rating, as explained below

(1) The Lifeweb is both described as containing mirrors that reflect 'higher dimensions', and that it stretches to infinity, this has been theorized to indicate that there are an infinite amount of higher dimensions, but since neither the quality (what kind of dimension) nor quantity (how many dimensions) of those dimensions is expanded upon, it's unusable for a Tier 1 rating. The Lifeweb 'stretching to infinity' can refer to just a High 3-A scale, and alone isn't evidence of infinite higher dimensions, as it's perfectly plausible for an structure that stretches to infinity to contain a finite amount of higher dimensions.

(2) It is unclear how powerful Antagon is, due to vagueness in the illustrations and language used to describe him. For this reason, scaling is not viable. Further, the full scale of the 'creation' that Antagon would hypothetically be pulling into the void. Within the story it appears that the terms 'creation' and 'universe' are being used interchangeably, which further obfuscates the true scale of the feat.

(3) Creating a universe is a powerful feat, but is nowhere near Tier 1 without additional evidence explaining what that universe entails, which is not provided in the story. This feat was used to justify his current tier, but not higher.

(4) Bohm's theory might suggest an effectively infinite, but not truly infinite, amount of geospatial dimensions, however, to use this for a Tier 1 rating would require considerably more specific in-story evidence applying it to DC, rather than just brief mention of Bohm in a single comic book, as it's vastly inconsistent with other descriptions of DC cosmology.

Notable Matchups

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Inconclusive:

References

Discussions