When James Gunn set out to reboot the DCU, he chose not to follow the Marvel method of building the world from the ground up. Instead, in 2025’s Superman, Gunn immersed us in a fully fleshed-out, lived-in DC Comics universe, already populated with dozens of iconic characters, ranging from familiar faces like Lex Luthor to deep cuts like Hawkgirl and the Guy Gardner version of Green Lantern. Gunn’s DCU is just two movies and a couple of TV shows deep (if you don’t count the previous DCEU projects that have been carried over into this new continuity), but this world is already brimming with powerful metahumans.
Gunn has woven his DC tapestry around the most powerful superhero of all, the Man of Steel, and surrounded him with similarly formidable heroes and villains. This DCU has Lobo, Ultraman, and even Starro the Conqueror (thanks to a retcon).
10
Mister Terrific
Mister Terrific wasn’t a very well-known DC character before Gunn introduced him in Superman, but Edi Gathegi made him an instant fan-favorite. Now, everyone knows who Mister Terrific is. Maybe he should’ve been the focus of the DCU’s second film, not Supergirl.
What makes Michael Holt such a powerful superhero is his genius intellect. He’s not a metahuman, but he is a Doc Brown-level inventor. Mister Terrific’s T-Spheres alone make him one of the DCU’s most powerful characters. Their cameras give him eyes everywhere, and their combat protocols act as his backup when he faces more enemies than he can take on his own. He’s got his own flying cybernetic assistants.
9
Amanda Waller
Amanda Waller, the mastermind behind Task Force X, isn’t especially powerful on her own. But she has the means to bend the world’s most notorious criminals to her will. She can get any supervillain that’s been caught to do her bidding, because she has the power to reduce their sentence or even set them free (or, more nefariously, to kill them with a brain implant).
When Bloodsport physically threatens Waller, he could easily kill her with his bare hands, but he hesitates. She could ruin his daughter’s life, so he’s powerless against her.
8
Ultraman
One could argue that the Ultraman twist in Superman’s third act is unnecessary. It overstuffs the movie, and it’s a strong enough conflict — with enough thematic resonance — that it could’ve been a movie of its own. But instead, it’s crammed into the final battle of a movie with a totally different main villain.
But, whether his inclusion was needed or not, he’s undeniably one of the strongest characters in the DCU. He’s a near-perfect clone of Superman, with all his might, but he has one flaw: he’s a bit dim. So, while he’s just as strong as Superman, he’s still pretty easily defeated, because Superman is able to outsmart him.
7
Lobo
The second feature-length entry in Gunn’s DCU, Supergirl, was pretty disappointing on the whole. It’s nowhere near as visually stunning or emotionally engaging as Woman of Tomorrow, the comic it’s based on, and Milly Alcock’s wonderful performance is worthy of much stronger writing.
But it did give us something that I wouldn’t trade for the world: Jason Momoa as Lobo. Momoa clearly had a ton of fun playing his dream DC role, and he’s easily one of the strongest characters established in this DCU — he wiped out his own people; he killed so many people, he convinced himself he’s a god.
6
Lex Luthor
Lex Luthor isn’t very physically powerful — he’s useless in a fight; we saw him get his ass handed to him by a flying dog — but he’s powerful in a different sense. He has the wealth and the influence and the genius intellect to do whatever he wants. Lex has all the money and resources he could ask for, and the smarts to know what to do with it.
If he wants to clone Superman and turn him into his personal superhuman puppet, he can. If he wants to create a pocket universe where he can trap all his enemies between time and space, he can.
5
Krypto
Supergirl’s pet dog, Krypto, might look sweet and innocent and unassuming, but he’s actually one of the strongest supes in Gunn’s DCU. He has all of Superman and Supergirl’s superpowers — flight, laser vision, supercanine strength — but he also has the energy and the scrappiness of a puppy.
Admittedly, it wasn’t very difficult for Krem to incapacitate Krypto for a few days in Supergirl. But that was less a comment on Krypto’s power and more just the inciting incident of Supergirl’s plot.
4
Guy Gardner
When we meet Guy Gardner in the DCU, he’s already a veteran superhero. He’s had the ring for a while, he knows how to use it with gusto and aplomb, and he’s the leader of an early version of the Justice League, dubbed the Justice Gang.
He’s seen it all. No alien threat or geopolitical conflict fazes him. In the final battle of Superman, Guy wipes out a nation’s entire armed forces by conjuring fists and middle fingers to destroy their tanks. The fact that Superman sent in Guy says it all: when Supes is unavailable, this Green Lantern is a solid substitute.
3
Supergirl
Under the yellow sun of the Earth, Supergirl is just as powerful as her cousin Superman. But the DCU’s Supergirl doesn’t feel comfortable on Earth, so she’s always off traveling the universe. Kal-El has made Earth his home, and he soaks up its yellow rays all day every day so he’s strong enough to keep the human race safe.
But Kara is different. She doesn’t feel at home on Earth, so she flies to other planets — and not just any other planets; planets that don’t have a yellow sun. She intentionally weakens herself so she can numb her pain with alcohol. That’s the only reason she’s less powerful than her cousin in this continuity.
2
Starro
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Since The Suicide Squad is canon to Gunn’s DCU, any discussion of this universe’s most powerful characters would have to include Starro the Conqueror. Not only is Starro a kaiju-sized beast capable of wiping out a city block with one footstep; he’s also a mind-controlling menace whose starfish minions act like xenomorph facehuggers.
Sure, Starro was defeated by Harley Quinn and an army of rats, but he put up a heck of a fight before then. Any creature that needs a thousand rats to chew through its eyeball to feel any pain is certainly a formidable opponent. But there’s one character in the DCU who’s more powerful than Starro, Green Lantern, and everyone else on this list.
1
Superman
There are a small handful of characters in the DC Comics universe who are technically more powerful than Superman. The Presence is basically God in the DC universe, so he blows Supes out of the water, and Doctor Manhattan’s powers make Superman’s powers look quaint (although Watchmen exists in its own separate universe from the Justice League). But, typically, the power levels of DC superheroes are measured on a scale of zero to Superman.
Certainly, in Gunn’s DCU, the most powerful character is Superman. One of the things that Gunn nailed about Superman as a character is that his biggest conflict isn’t an enemy who’s stronger than him; it’s the internal struggle of not being able to save everyone who needs to be saved, because he can’t be in two places at once.