Marvel and DC Policy - Cross-Scaling Revision Proposal

[M3X_2.0]

Hey everyone. I want to bring up something that I think is a genuine issue with how we currently handle Marvel and DC power-scaling, specifically regarding cross-scaling and how it ends up collapsing characters into indistinct tiers.

Right now, the policy allows cross-scaling on a case-by-case basis, which is reasonable in principle. The issue is that in practice, this ends up homogenizing characters that have no business being at the same level. Street-tier characters end up sharing identical stats across the board not because their own feats support it, but because they've interacted with each other at some point. A trained human boxer, a supernatural ninja and a street detective end up with the same profile because they all crossed paths with Spider-Man or fought alongside an Avenger once. Writers of different comic series will inherently have different scales of feats dependent on the character.

What the current policy already gets right

The existing rules already acknowledge this problem partially. The "case-by-case basis" and "consistency" criteria are meant to prevent blind scaling, and the common sense clause exists for a reason. The issue is that these criteria aren't specific enough to prevent the homogenization problem in practice, because there's no clear standard for when an external interaction actually justifies scaling.

The Proposal

I'm suggesting we expand the existing criteria with three more specific principles:

1. Contextual consistency over numbers: We shouldn't assign a fixed minimum number of feats to determine what's representative for a character. Instead, representativeness should be evaluated based on the narrative scope of the character's own books. A character whose solo runs are consistently street-level doesn't get a cosmic feat treated as representative just because it technically happened once.
2. Narrative centrality as the standard for cross-scaling: Cross-scaling should only be valid when the comparison between characters is a central element of the narrative, not incidental. Sharing a scene, appearing on the same team, or fighting in the same event is not sufficient justification. The story needs to explicitly treat the characters as comparable in a specific stat for that scaling to hold. Daredevil fighting alongside heavy-hitting Avengers doesn't scale him to Avengers-level speed, or whatever they have now. Moon Knight interacting once with a higher-tier character doesn't anchor him to that tier.
3. Own feats always take priority: When a character's own demonstrated feats contradict what cross-scaling would suggest, the own feats win. External scaling is secondary evidence at best, never the primary justification for a stat.

Proposed addition to the policy page

Under the existing "Case-by-case basis" rule, add the following:

Cross-scaling is only valid as a secondary form of evidence. A character's own consistently demonstrated feats within their own narrative context take priority in all cases. Furthermore, cross-scaling between characters is only applicable when the narrative explicitly frames the characters as comparable, not merely because they interact or appear together. Incidental interactions, team appearances, and event crossovers do not constitute sufficient grounds for scaling without additional support from the characters' own feats.

An exception applies to characters who exist exclusively or primarily within crossover narratives, events, or team books, and have no meaningful solo history to draw from. In these cases, cross-scaling from their appearances remains valid as it constitutes their primary source of feats.

The current situation creates profiles that don't reflect what these characters actually do in their own stories. It flattens meaningful distinctions between characters at every tier, not just street-level. Fixing this doesn't require scrapping the existing policy, just making the cross-scaling criteria precise enough to be consistently applied. For example: Marvel’s street characters are all scaling to the same ratings in both AP/Dura/SS and speed, even though I’m pretty sure Moon Knight have much better feats than 9-B and Hypersonic speeds.

Overall, this isn’t a radical departure from what we already have. The existing policy does a good job acknowledging the inherent inconsistencies of Marvel and DC, and the rules around case-by-case scaling and consistency are solid in principle. What I’m proposing is just making those principles precise enough to actually be applied consistently. Profiles should reflect what characters do in their own stories, cross-scaling should require narrative justification beyond shared appearances, and own feats should always take priority when there’s a contradiction. Characters who exist exclusively in crossovers are exempt since that’s all they have to work with. This closes a gap that the current policy leaves open, and I think it’s a natural next step for improving the reliability of our Marvel and DC profiles. On top of that, this gives us as wiki members more freedom to accurately represent what these characters actually are. Right now a lot of characters are locked into a tier not because their feats support it, but because a cross-scaling chain placed them there. This revision allows us to scale characters to what they genuinely demonstrate in their own stories, without being forced to accept scaling that doesn’t reflect the character at all.

 

[M3X_2.0]

TLDR for those who don’t wanna read my yap: This CRT, if passed, would allow us to separate scaling between each character cosmology. Spider-Man and his villains can have their own ratings without affecting characters that don’t belong to that cosmology.

 

[Emirp sumitpo]

OP looks fine.

 

[Lonkitt]

Understood, now upgrade Daredevil to 8-C RIGHT NOW (sources for the upgrade: idk)

I agree with the OP

 

[ProfectusInfinity]

Everything looks fine here to me, nice work.

 

[Baken384]

Should be good

 

[Bimbitesthedust]

Seems prettty reasonable

Agree

 

[Da3ggman]

Def agree with OP, this is gonna make scaling a lot more consistent and understandable in general.

 

[Saqphire]

So to make it clear, you want to keep the scaling primarily focused within a character's mainline IP; like Spider-Man's scaling revolving around the Spider-Man comics and crossover scaling would only be valid if that crossover is a major part of that IP (like Secret Wars or something) ?

 

[M3X_2.0]

So to make it clear, you want to keep the scaling primarily focused within a character's mainline IP; like Spider-Man's scaling revolving around the Spider-Man comics and crossover scaling would only be valid if that crossover is a major part of that IP (like Secret Wars or something) ?

Yeah, so characters can be represented by their own feats, and not by an attempt to a imaginary scaling chain that doesn’t sustain itself if you read comic books.

There is no way to make a concise scaling chain between hundreds of characters while they’re written by multiple different writers who think differently between each other.

 

[Saqphire]

Yeah, so characters can be represented by their own feats, and not by an attempt to a imaginary scaling chain that doesn’t sustain itself if you read comic books.

There is no way to make a concise scaling chain between hundreds of characters while they’re written by multiple different writers who think differently between each other.

Okay, this makes complete sense and honestly, the crossover bullsh*t between 50 writers is one of the main reasons why I refused to scale comic book characters for a while now. Count me as agreeing to this and also:

Daredevil fighting alongside heavy-hitting Avengers doesn't scale him to Avengers-level speed, or whatever they have now.

 

[ByArrow]

I think this should be a staff thread because the OP intended to change the wiki's policy.

 

[Dalesean027]

This seem sensible to me too and yeah this should probably be a staff thread

 

[M3X_2.0]

Someone gotta change the tag then.

 

[Planck69]

Yeah, this makes sense.

 

[Lacku]

Makes a lot of sense, agree with OP

 

[Rgerdeena]

There are characters in marvel that are consistently comparable to each other and should scale to each other’s feats, herald tier characters are for the most part blatantly on par with each other yet a few of them don’t have nearly as good feats as the rest(looking at blue marvel), the same goes for virtually any tier of power in marvel albeit to a lesser extent then with herald tier characters, characters that are blatantly on par with each other shouldn’t be considered not on par just because they have feats on different levels, I get not wanting to scale a character based on one random fight against someone else, but making characters’s own feats come before their consistent amount of power relative to other heroes would cause massive contradictions

 

[Rgerdeena]

There are characters in marvel that are consistently comparable to each other and should scale to each other’s feats, herald tier characters are for the most part blatantly on par with each other yet a few of them don’t have nearly as good feats as the rest(looking at blue marvel), the same goes for virtually any tier of power in marvel albeit to a lesser extent then with herald tier characters, characters that are blatantly on par with each other shouldn’t be considered not on par just because they have feats on different levels, I get not wanting to scale a character based on one random fight against someone else, but making characters’s own feats come before their consistent amount of power relative to other heroes would cause massive contradictions

Apologies for commenting without premision, i only just saw that it’s staff discussion

 

[M3X_2.0]

Apologies for commenting without premision, i only just saw that it’s staff discussion

You can comment.

There are characters in marvel that are consistently comparable to each other and should scale to each other’s feats, herald tier characters are for the most part blatantly on par with each other yet a few of them don’t have nearly as good feats as the rest(looking at blue marvel), the same goes for virtually any tier of power in marvel albeit to a lesser extent then with herald tier characters, characters that are blatantly on par with each other shouldn’t be considered not on par just because they have feats on different levels, I get not wanting to scale a character based on one random fight against someone else, but making characters’s own feats come before their consistent amount of power relative to other heroes would cause massive contradictions

I think you misread the proposal. This isn’t about ignoring consistent power relationships between characters. If Blue Marvel is consistently portrayed as herald-tier across his appearances, that stays valid. The point is the opposite: characters who have their own feats that place them above or below a group shouldn’t be forced into the same tier as that group just because of incidental interactions. Own feats take priority when they exist and are consistent. If they don’t exist and the character is consistently portrayed as comparable, cross-scaling works fine. The proposal doesn’t create contradictions, it resolves them, and makes scaling easier.

 

[Rgerdeena]

You can comment.

I think you misread the proposal. This isn’t about ignoring consistent power relationships between characters. If Blue Marvel is consistently portrayed as herald-tier across his appearances, that stays valid. The point is the opposite: characters who have their own feats that place them above or below a group shouldn’t be forced into the same tier as that group just because of incidental interactions. Own feats take priority when they exist and are consistent. If they don’t exist and the character is consistently portrayed as comparable, cross-scaling works fine. The proposal doesn’t create contradictions, it resolves them, and makes scaling easier.

Hmm, yeah that makes sense, I agree

 

[The_Impress]

Firstly I dislike that this is Marvel/DC because I have said multiple times that cross-scaling dynamics in both the verses are vastly different: for all intents and purposes DC doesn't have a scaling problem on much of the same scale, frustration there is mostly lack of supporters. I think the joint Powerscaling Rules page is a travesty too.

Addressing with respect to Marvel: I don't really think the wiki is smart enough to go by own feats when every other supporter insists on snowball and actively removed all downscaling tiers as soon as past staff left because they couldn't be assed to read basic policy pages. In general I think the idea of "everyone scales to their own feats" is pretty but at the end of the day it takes 2 admins shoulder shrugging after 8 pages of Ant tagging randos, and we get High 8-C Daredevil because someone insisted Daredevil scaling to Moon Knight at High 8-C via own feats was consistent. Exact same shit happened when MFFG wiped out holdback tiers based on 2 discussion mods yessing to some thread Ant let go on for 20 pages, and one of them admitted to my face they just yes'd it because they didn't wanna read the thread. So Wiki precedent doesn't give me any confidence this will get followed.

We already are nulling the more egregious cross scaling without rule change as well:

• Far less characters scale to folks that are contextual top tier such as Spider-Man and Hulk, most revisions render their more "fight everyone" villains as glass cannons so they can logically fit more characters. See Vulture and Electro for instance.
• Characters like Moon Knight and other characters who are stronger, we are trying to get Variable tiers (if there is a mechanic or an extremely consistent implication of one) to explain fluctuations in power. The current wiki version of Moon Knight is outdated, but Confluctor who has been ex-staff recently exhausted Moon Knight's appearances has made an updated Moon Knight page to better reflect his fluctuations (We just have to adapt it for VSBW)

https://all-fiction-battles.fandom.com/wiki/Moon_Knight_(Classic)

My current worry is that the disjointed tiers are just gonna be ripe for exploitation, and I think the solution is moreso making the pages mechanically flawless as opposed to every character's page just being a Death Battle blog: I think the verse should be consistent with itself as much as it can be.

So yeah I see the vision of this, I just think we should try to represent the characters as a part of a puzzle piece as opposed to just being disjointed, because Marvel characters just aren't disjointed, they crossover frequently, and far more than DC for us to just yeet broader cross scaling.

Admittedly I might be yapping pointlessly and have misunderstood some proposals because I am immensely sleepy as I see this

 

[M3X_2.0]

Firstly I dislike that this is Marvel/DC because I have said multiple times that cross-scaling dynamics in both the verses are vastly different: for all intents and purposes DC doesn't have a scaling problem on much of the same scale, frustration there is mostly lack of supporters. I think the joint Powerscaling Rules page is a travesty too.

I don't really mind splitting both, I just added them together because they share the same powerscaling rules page. DC doesn't have this issue but they also lack a strong street level presence like Marvel does, though.

Addressing with respect to Marvel: I don't really think the wiki is smart enough to go by own feats when every other supporter insists on snowball and actively removed all downscaling tiers as soon as past staff left because they couldn't be assed to read basic policy pages. In general I think the idea of "everyone scales to their own feats" is pretty but at the end of the day it takes 2 admins shoulder shrugging after 8 pages of Ant tagging randos, and we get High 8-C Daredevil because someone insisted Daredevil scaling to Moon Knight at High 8-C via own feats was consistent. Exact same shit happened when MFFG wiped out holdback tiers based on 2 discussion mods yessing to some thread Ant let go on for 20 pages, and one of them admitted to my face they just yes'd it because they didn't wanna read the thread. So Wiki precedent doesn't give me any confidence this will get followed.

I'd actually argue the wiki has been moving more towards judging characters by their own feats rather than snowballing scaling chains, and that's a good thing. The examples you brought up are frustrating, but they're failures of enforcement and staff attention, not failures of the criteria itself. If anything, having clearer and more specific rules makes it harder to pull off what you're describing, because there's less room for "well technically this interaction justifies it." The answer to bad applications of a good principle isn't to abandon the principle, it's to enforce it better. I think I've talked with @Tomfer before and he was saying that Moon Knight has a lot of better feats than just 9-B, and that it isn't fair to scale him to this Tier just because other characters are. I'm also pretty sure the Spider-Man fans would like to move away from having their favorite character locked behind a scaling chain he has no business being in.

Also, the Daredevil High 8-C example isn't even real, so I'm not sure what point it's making. I was, and am responsible for the Daredevil profile right now. I made the changes. The only High 8-C value he has is because he had a new "form" and could harm Spider-Man with "everything he had", thus the "at most".

We already are nulling the more egregious cross scaling without rule change as well:

• Far less characters scale to folks that are contextual top tier such as Spider-Man and Hulk, most revisions render their more "fight everyone" villains as glass cannons so they can logically fit more characters. See Vulture and Electro for instance.
• Characters like Moon Knight and other characters who are stronger, we are trying to get Variable tiers (if there is a mechanic or an extremely consistent implication of one) to explain fluctuations in power. The current wiki version of Moon Knight is outdated, but Confluctor who has been ex-staff recently exhausted Moon Knight's appearances has made an updated Moon Knight page to better reflect his fluctuations (We just have to adapt it for VSBW)

https://all-fiction-battles.fandom.com/wiki/Moon_Knight_(Classic)

The first point is solid and honestly supports what I'm proposing. Differentiating between villains who can logically scale and those who can't is exactly the kind of precision I'm advocating for.

The second point is a bit different though. Variable tiers work for Moon Knight because there's an established in-lore reason for his power to fluctuate, Khonshu actively manipulates his abilities. That's not a general solution, that's a specific mechanic unique to that character. Most street-level characters don't have anything like that. They have a consistent power level that their own feats define, and the issue is that cross-scaling is overriding those feats rather than complementing them. Variable tiers can't fix that for characters whose power doesn't actually vary in their own stories. @Tomfer can obviously correct me.

And I'd argue most characters actually do have a consistent level when you look at their full history properly. Daredevil is a good example of this. I've gone through essentially all of his Marvel appearances, ran the calcs, and the conclusion is that he sits at a pretty stable tier that rarely changes. He's textbook street-level, not particularly overpowered but not without his comic book moments either. The consistency is there when you actually do the work of reading the character instead of relying on cross-scaling shortcuts. And this applies beyond street-level too. Most characters, whether street or cosmic, tend to have a consistent baseline when you average out their feats across a significant number of appearances. The variable tiers solution only makes sense for characters like Moon Knight where the lore itself explains the fluctuation. For everyone else, the consistency is already there, we just need scaling criteria that reflects it instead of overriding it with chain scaling. And honestly, I'll admit I've fallen into the same trap myself. I've scaled characters based on isolated interactions before, just landing them at a different tier instead of fixing the underlying methodology. That's part of why I'm pushing for this change. I don't want to keep contributing to the same problem with different numbers at the end. That's why every street tier is 9-B and Hypersonic, although I doubt the speed would change that much, anyway.

My current worry is that the disjointed tiers are just gonna be ripe for exploitation, and I think the solution is moreso making the pages mechanically flawless as opposed to every character's page just being a Death Battle blog: I think the verse should be consistent with itself as much as it can be.

So yeah I see the vision of this, I just think we should try to represent the characters as a part of a puzzle piece as opposed to just being disjointed, because Marvel characters just aren't disjointed, they crossover frequently, and far more than DC for us to just yeet broader cross scaling.

Admittedly I might be yapping pointlessly and have misunderstood some proposals because I am immensely sleepy as I see this

The exploitation concern is valid in theory, but the proposal doesn't create disjointed tiers, it creates accurate ones. Characters that are genuinely and consistently comparable still scale to each other, that hasn't changed. The difference is that isolated interactions stop being enough justification on their own. That's not making Marvel disjointed, that's just being precise about what actually constitutes a valid scaling argument.

And Marvel being heavily interconnected is exactly why we need clearer criteria, not looser ones. The frequency of crossovers is what created this problem in the first place. The goal isn't to yeet cross-scaling entirely, it's to make sure it's being used as supporting evidence rather than a primary justification.

And even if some tiers end up slightly disjointed as a result, that's not necessarily a problem. A handful of isolated interactions shouldn't be the primary thing anchoring a character's tier. That should come from their solo runs and the writers who were actually focused on them. Cross-scaling still has its place, it just shouldn't override that foundation.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Looking good from a glance, but this obviously needs @Antvasima to ping those who need to be pinged as well as when he has time give his own opinions.

 

[DaReaperMan]

Not sure if Image Helpers can like, comment in these places, so delete if I'm mistaken, but this seems okay at a tentative glance.

"Scale everyone to their own feats" only really doesn't work when the character does not have a consistent Rogues Gallery and/or gets around like say, Punisher. And at that point almost all of those guys are street-tier or their weapons are stronger than they are a lot of the time, like Taskmaster or Deadpool. I'm not saying that it has no merit, but as someone who's dealt with a big(But not as big) verse in Warcraft, eventually the puzzle pieces just... fall together as you read enough.

Longstanding Comic-isms are always gonna happen, but what you do in that case is ask "What's consistent?" If this guy fights Spider-Man a few times but jobs to street tiers a dozen times, he's street-tier. "X fight Y a few times" isn't a good justification for a character with hundreds or thousands of appearances, they're always going to have lower or higher scaling, usually edging towards lower. I'm not saying "Use Hulk jobbing to an Anaconda as an anti-feat", That is, frankly, stupid.

Oh, and I think we need to call special attention to the big guy. Spider-Man. If a character has a long-standing and well-known history of holding back, don't use them to scale unless they're like Venom and Carnage and have a history of duking it out with a not-holding back Spider-Man. Same applies to Thor, or Doctor Doom, or Superman, or etcetera etcetera etcetera. I'm gonna cut this rambling short with saying "This is good, but it's not exactly what I'd do given the situation"

 

[M3X_2.0]

Not sure if Image Helpers can like, comment in these places, so delete if I'm mistaken, but this seems okay at a tentative glance.

It is a staff thread but it’s not staff only, I don’t think these are mandatory to be staff only. And I don’t think there is a reason to since we need community help here. So anyone feel free to comment.

Also I don’t exactly get what you mean. Are you agreeing with the thread just with different methods?

 

[M3X_2.0]

Looking good from a glance, but this obviously needs @Antvasima to ping those who need to be pinged as well as when he has time give his own opinions.

Thank you. @Antvasima since the OP is a bit longer, I wanted to give you and whoever you a ping a more detailed TLDR, because I’m going to sleep right now and when I wake up, there will be a couple dozens of messages here.

TLDR: Characters should be scaled primarily by their own consistent feats within their own stories. Cross-scaling is still valid, but only as supporting evidence and only when the narrative actually frames the characters as comparable, not just because they shared a scene or appeared in the same event. A character’s tier shouldn’t be defined by a single isolated interaction with someone from a completely different power level. Characters who exist exclusively in crossovers and have no solo history are exempt and scale normally.

 

[DaReaperMan]

It is a staff thread but it’s not staff only, I don’t think these are mandatory to be staff only. And I don’t think there is a reason to since we need community help here. So anyone feel free to comment.

Also I don’t exactly get what you mean. Are you agreeing with the thread just with different methods?

I do agree with the idea of the thread but I'd have different methods. TLDR: A character fighting another character repeatedly should be taken as just as consistent as Solo run feats. So things like "Taskmaster gets around with Deadpool, Punisher, etcetera" should remain fine.

 

[Tomfer]

I think I've talked with @Tomfer before and he was saying that Moon Knight has a lot of better feats than just 9-B, and that it isn't fair to scale him to this Tier just because other characters are.

Hey me mentioned, what's good.

So, I'll be answering (and yap about MK a lot since it's the topic) just the things that M3X tagged me in since this is a staff thread.

You wanna know why MK is H8-C right now? Because he's scaling to an actual MK villain. You wanna know why MK was 9-B before? Because he was scaling to DD and Punisher, characters that have NOTHING to do with MK's stories. DD fought MK only once and they both were holding back. Punisher fought him only twice or thrice, with MK holding back against him all of the time. I don't think Moon Knight interacted with DD in years, and Punisher only when he was possessed by the beast.

I think I've talked with @Tomfer before and he was saying that Moon Knight has a lot of better feats than just 9-B, and that it isn't fair to scale him to this Tier just because other characters are.

That's true but if with butts (haha). Moon Knight's stories and his sagas/arcs/storylines or whatever are messy to say to say at least and they're not for the reasons most think. MK's very first version, his very comic debut, already set him on the H8-C standard when he fought Werewolf by Night, someone that fought Dracula as an equal, someone who upscales H8-C. And that's not even an "era" or writer inconsistancy because it was done IN THE SAME RUN. You COULD argue that Dracula himself wasn't H8-C during that era, but when I talked to Impress (almost a year ago I think), she also agreed that supernatural creatures like Dracula and Werewolf are, or were, consistantly set at H8-C. But there are also eras that MK is barely 9-B and eras that MK is tier 7 or straight up tier 1.

Unlike people like DD or Punisher, MK actually has a good excuse. That being Khonshu's own BS, and something that Confluctor and I agreed, that MK also has MULTIPLE mechanics at once. So MK alone, not only has variable mechanics with Khonshu, but also variable mechanics related to concepts and willpower.

And about Confluctor's version of the MK profile. I'm still going to adapt to this wiki, I'm just in a bad spot in life these couple of days.

Variable tiers can't fix that for characters whose power doesn't actually vary in their own stories. @Tomfer can obviously correct me.

I'm not sure I got this point? Could you help me understand? Because from what I got... Yeah? You gotta have a variable mechanic IN YOUR OWN STORIES before putting as an excuse in the profile. And I gotta say, even if, someone like Punisher for example, had a canon variable mechanic... he still would be only 9-B due to the fact that he gets owned by Daredevil on a daily basis on DD's run AND in his own run too.

There have been cases where MK has variable powers in his story. I believe in his crossover with the West Coast Avengers happened, in his Marc Spector: Moon Knight era also happened, In the Conan event also happened, even during his most recent era, Jed Mackay era has happened too, especially in his Blood Hunt crossover. One notable moment was in his 2014 run, in the issue where Marc challenged Khonshu because he fought and lost to the boogeyman, so Marc without Khonshu's blessing, went full Punisher against the creature and won. These first two cases, where it happened in his classic era, he has been depowered, and in his more modern era, he has been upgraded.

TLDR; Don't try to use Moon Knight as an example lmao.

Btw M3X, I personally agree with your thread.

 

[M3X_2.0]

You wanna know why MK is H8-C right now? Because he's scaling to an actual MK villain. Russell was, and still is, a rival of MK in both of their stories/comics. You know who he was scaling before? DD and Punisher, characters that have NOTHING to do with MK nowadays

Perfectly encapsulated everything wrong with how we currently scale characters.

 

[Random-Helper323]

How would this be applied to things like Wolverine being Tier 1 for harming god level enemies with his Adamantium?

 

[DaReaperMan]

How would this be applied to things like Wolverine being Tier 1 for harming god level enemies with his Adamantium?

I'd say his claws have like, 0 anti-feats. They tend to go through everything that's not either Adamantium or is against someone named Max

 

[Maverick_Zero_X]

How would this be applied to things like Wolverine being Tier 1 for harming god level enemies with his Adamantium?

He still stabs heavy hitters massively superior to him in X-Men stories so I presume that claws would retain a high tier. Crossovers just give it consistency.

Anyway I agree with the OP.

 

[Armorchompy]

Hey everyone. I want to bring up something that I think is a genuine issue with how we currently handle Marvel and DC power-scaling, specifically regarding cross-scaling and how it ends up collapsing characters into indistinct tiers.

Right now, the policy allows cross-scaling on a case-by-case basis, which is reasonable in principle. The issue is that in practice, this ends up homogenizing characters that have no business being at the same level. Street-tier characters end up sharing identical stats across the board not because their own feats support it, but because they've interacted with each other at some point. A trained human boxer, a supernatural ninja and a street detective end up with the same profile because they all crossed paths with Spider-Man or fought alongside an Avenger once. Writers of different comic series will inherently have different scales of feats dependent on the character.

What the current policy already gets right

The existing rules already acknowledge this problem partially. The "case-by-case basis" and "consistency" criteria are meant to prevent blind scaling, and the common sense clause exists for a reason. The issue is that these criteria aren't specific enough to prevent the homogenization problem in practice, because there's no clear standard for when an external interaction actually justifies scaling.

The Proposal

I'm suggesting we expand the existing criteria with three more specific principles:

1. Contextual consistency over numbers: We shouldn't assign a fixed minimum number of feats to determine what's representative for a character. Instead, representativeness should be evaluated based on the narrative scope of the character's own books. A character whose solo runs are consistently street-level doesn't get a cosmic feat treated as representative just because it technically happened once.
2. Narrative centrality as the standard for cross-scaling: Cross-scaling should only be valid when the comparison between characters is a central element of the narrative, not incidental. Sharing a scene, appearing on the same team, or fighting in the same event is not sufficient justification. The story needs to explicitly treat the characters as comparable in a specific stat for that scaling to hold. Daredevil fighting alongside heavy-hitting Avengers doesn't scale him to Avengers-level speed, or whatever they have now. Moon Knight interacting once with a higher-tier character doesn't anchor him to that tier.
3. Own feats always take priority: When a character's own demonstrated feats contradict what cross-scaling would suggest, the own feats win. External scaling is secondary evidence at best, never the primary justification for a stat.

Proposed addition to the policy page

Under the existing "Case-by-case basis" rule, add the following:

An exception applies to characters who exist exclusively or primarily within crossover narratives, events, or team books, and have no meaningful solo history to draw from. In these cases, cross-scaling from their appearances remains valid as it constitutes their primary source of feats.

The current situation creates profiles that don't reflect what these characters actually do in their own stories. It flattens meaningful distinctions between characters at every tier, not just street-level. Fixing this doesn't require scrapping the existing policy, just making the cross-scaling criteria precise enough to be consistently applied. For example: Marvel’s street characters are all scaling to the same ratings in both AP/Dura/SS and speed, even though I’m pretty sure Moon Knight have much better feats than 9-B and Hypersonic speeds.

Overall, this isn’t a radical departure from what we already have. The existing policy does a good job acknowledging the inherent inconsistencies of Marvel and DC, and the rules around case-by-case scaling and consistency are solid in principle. What I’m proposing is just making those principles precise enough to actually be applied consistently. Profiles should reflect what characters do in their own stories, cross-scaling should require narrative justification beyond shared appearances, and own feats should always take priority when there’s a contradiction. Characters who exist exclusively in crossovers are exempt since that’s all they have to work with. This closes a gap that the current policy leaves open, and I think it’s a natural next step for improving the reliability of our Marvel and DC profiles. On top of that, this gives us as wiki members more freedom to accurately represent what these characters actually are. Right now a lot of characters are locked into a tier not because their feats support it, but because a cross-scaling chain placed them there. This revision allows us to scale characters to what they genuinely demonstrate in their own stories, without being forced to accept scaling that doesn’t reflect the character at all.

Sorry, I think this sounds good but I'm not convinced it's very achievable. Ultimately when it comes to Marvel characters very decisively exist in a greater whole and people aren't going to understand the intent of this when it comes to just scaling whoever they're looking at at the moment. If they're making a profile they'll just look at whoever the character is scaling to and say "scales to these stats". In particular it's going to cause a big headache for B-lister villains who are all over the place in fighting to different people. Kingpin was a Spider-Man rogue for a decade+ before passing over to Daredevil, Crossbones has thrown hands with literally every street tier, Dracula's been an Avengers, Blade, Dr. Strange villain and more... There's also significant issues in that sometimes scaling to other characters genuinely should take priority over one's own feats. This kind of "scale to your own portrayal" treatment is good in a vacuum but I struggle to believe it's doable.

DC is a bit different in that characters cross over a bit less but there's also a much clearer consistency of power in crossovers (which is to say most JLers are all on the same power tier) so different problem.

I'm not convinced you fully acknowledge the ramifications of this kind of thing, and furthermore since you're offering a series-wise scaling revision I can't accept something like this unless you can give tangible examples of how it's going to affect various characters' tiers

 

[Antvasima]

I personally think that M3X makes sense here, but it also depends on if Impress can figure out potential improvements.

@Qawsedf234 @Firestorm808 @Elizio33 @Catzlaflame @ObberGobb @Emirp sumitpo @IdiosyncraticLawyer @LordTracer @ProfectusInfinity @FinePoint @SamanPatou @Starter_Pack @Eficiente @Adr10K

What do you think about this?

 

[Eficiente]

Very well done. On "Contextual consistency over numbers", I would throw in the word "anti-feats" somewhere. Because characters whose solo runs consistently portrays them on a certain level could be stronger if they lack the anti-feats to prove otherwise, hypothetically. It's kind of a given but it points out the real issue by name.

 

[Da3ggman]

Not sure if Image Helpers can like, comment in these places, so delete if I'm mistaken, but this seems okay at a tentative glance.

I've been getting away with it for a while, just pretend like you belong and chances are you won't be told off.

 

[ObberGobb]

I think I agree with this. Like I've been reading through classic Avengers gathering feats and statements, and I agree it makes no sense for like Captain America to scale to Wonder Man because they were fighting the same guy. Could you elaborate more on the implications of prioritizing someone's individual feats in their own narrative? Like where would this leave statements regarding comparability? If Character A is consistently stated to be stronger than Character B in an Avengers book but has less impressive direct feats in their own book, how would that be resolved?

 

[The_Impress]

DC doesn't have this issue but they also lack a strong street level presence like Marvel does, though.

DC Street tiers are just actually wacky though, because they treat Flash as Street tier.

Honestly... I might give a big ask right now, but can you like, show off any of the proposed tiers these rules might bring up, and the file changes? Doesn't have to be particularly elaborate or entirely accurate, just the list of characters you think are currently in the violation, and what your system might approximate them to, for Marvel? Because I think we're arguing hypotheticals right now and I just don't feel comfortable saying yes to a proposal which might drastically alter the verse without idk, seeing some representation or draft for the changes it'll bring.

I'd say his claws have like, 0 anti-feats. They tend to go through everything that's not either Adamantium or is against someone named Max

They have antifeats. Also there are proposals for Adamantium to be turned into duraneg again through some of the statements. Anyways beyond the scope of the thread.

 

[ObberGobb]

I would like to see some specific examples of changes too, for both Marvel and DC if possible

 

[KingTempest]

Yeah I'm in the middle

For DC there is a heavy level of consistency. We go through the multiverse and we see like 40 different batman clones all fighting at the same level. We see every martial artist Batman learns from or that he fights all capable of fighting people he fights (Ra's, Shiva, Karate Kid, even his own kids). The only issue is when you put him against canonical superhumans who are "supposed" to be physically superior, but batman is just batman. Like I don't see Damian shoulder flipping Killer Croc but like... he might?

Even with like Superman, Hal Jordan, Wonder Woman, the Titans, the weak ones fight weak dudes and the top tiers always fight the same level of top tiers. You'd look at Starfire in comparison to the JL and you'd think she's "near their level but not fully", but then you got Starfire fighting New Gods, Blackfire fighting Hawkgirl nd Hawkman, statements of being close to Superman, like it's consistent. Everyone's lore is intertwined and same with their strength.
For every DC profile, you can find 30 statements solidifying their tier.

So Idk how I feel about it for DC.

For marvel, some reason everyone is the same damn tier. And I don't mean wiki wise, I mean feat wise.

In marvel comics the street tiers are much closer to street tier level while spiderman is damn near the border between human and cosmic.
Like taskmaster is a daredevil level villain, but he hunts Spidermen consistently.
Spiderman can get hurt by Blade and T'Challa but he's dozens of times stronger than em
We literally got half the herald tier chars ranging from tier 5 to tier 1 depending on if they put their back into a punch and others scaling there cause they scratched em once in a fight

I think this is beneficial towards Marvel.

I'm not the best person for this though, but I do see an issue, and this looks like a solution