They say the clothes make the man, or woman, and you should dress for the job you want. They say other things about clothes too, like something about wearing white after Labor Day. None of that is relevant when it comes to powering yourself up in a world of heroes and villains with your very own super suit. Power suits, in whatever form it takes, is the kind of thing that turns a regular Joe into the savior of the galaxy. It also turns a small-time crook into a bank-smashing outlaw who runs over cops as if they were ants. It's a rich tapestry of possibility, and all of it stems from having the perfect outfit for the occasion.
With all the super suits out in the universe, it's sometimes hard to keep track of them, especially with new versions coming and going about as fast as iPhones hitting the market. It's easy to forget some of the classics and maybe also lose an appreciation for some of the less popular suits that really deserve respect for their ability to stand the test of time. With that in mind, we're here to offer up a definitive ranking of the 20 most powerful.
20 STILT-MAN
Nearly as old as Iron Man himself, Stilt-Man can trace his roots all the way to Daredevil #8, back in 1965, when he first lost to the Man Without Fear. He was a villain with a dream; that dream was to rob places that were not on the first floor. Most villains would simply take the elevator to accomplish this, or maybe even the stairs. But Stilt-Man is not most villains. Engineer Wilbur Day did what any sinister criminal intellect would do, and he built a super suit with telescopic legs.
Despite the fact that Stilt-Man has lost fights to Daredevil and Spider-Man many, many, many times, he does have an admirable perseverance.
In fact, he has been reborn about four times throughout the years. The Stilt-Man armor has received some fairly impressive upgrades that take it beyond just a tin can that can reach a balcony. Stilt-Man's armor even got a flea market adamantium (what they called secondary adamantium) redesign at one point. And while it seems like maybe Stilt-Man is, in fact, completely ridiculous in every conceivable way, maybe that's his (and her, since there's a Lady Stilt-Man) strength now. Everyone underestimates Stilt-Man, until the day he uses a Z-Ray gun to send them to another planet.
19 VULTURE
If you only know Vulture from Spider-Man: Homecoming, you'd be forgiven for thinking he's actually a very cool character. That version has an impressive set of destructive abilities, all stemming from what is essentially a cooler version of the Falcon's flight armor. All props to Michael Keaton for making one of the best villains in the MCU. He made having feathery bird wings into a violent, dangerous weapon capable of busting into Stark tech and nearly killing Spider-Man several times over. But he's not the only Vulture out there.
Old school Spider-Man villain Adrian "The Vulture" Toomes was often the sad sack of the rogue's gallery. He looked like your grandpa in a costume for Carnaval. It was that history of being kind of a loser, and never the coolest villain at the party, that allowed creators like John Higgins and Robert to craft some brilliant stories with the character that made him far more sinister than anyone ever imagined. Regardless of which version of the Vulture you're reading though, the fact remains his suit has one of the most simple and elegant powers in the universe of comic characters – it allows a man to fly like a bird, and that's kind of awesome.
18 CRIMSON DYNAMO
If you're wondering why Crimson Dynamo makes it onto a list of power suits, then you don't know Crimson Dynamo. No one deserves a participation award more than the Crimson Dynamo. They're the Little Engine That Couldn't of the Marvel Universe. They deserve some credit for never giving up on a dream of villainy no matter how many times they failed. And, just to clarify, they failed a lot.
You'd be hard pressed to find any character who's been done as much as this Russian Iron Man villain!
Now, you're likely used to characters getting redesigned over the years, or maybe a new person takes up the mantle of an old character, but you'd be hard pressed to find any character who's been done as much as this Russian Iron Man villain. The Crimson Dynamo has had 13 iterations since it was first introduced in Tales of Suspense back in 1963. Clearly there's something to this idea – how could 13 people keep making the same mistake if there wasn't a kernel of awesome somewhere in this thing's shiny, red chest? And there really was some potential here; the Crimson Dynamo was essentially a counterpart to Iron Man in many ways. Maybe none of the Dynamos had a lot of success with their electricity-wielding armor, but they keep. Coming. Back.
17 RED X
It's possible you've never heard of Red X, owing to the fact it's not actually from comic books. Instead, Red X came from the Teen Titans animated show, where it was a super powered suit of armor that Robin had designed as a way to play at being a villain in order to track down another villain. Think of it like a super-powered disguise that really had to sell the idea to convince people it was the real deal. Of course, someone else ends up in control of the armor, so Red X goes from being just a sly cover for Robin to a full-on threat.
Red X's suit is made out of Xenothium, which you know is cool because it starts with an X and comics don't toss that letter around lightly. With the suit, in addition to all of Robin's normal abilities, he can now teleport and project energy weapons in the form of red X's, which is cooler than it sounds. The red X's work like shuriken or wrist-mounted weapons as well, and are used to restrain opponents. They're remarkably versatile. The suit also has cloaking capabilities, so Red X can turn invisible when necessary. Why Robin didn't think of something like this earlier, we may never know.
16 STEEL
Once upon a time, a really angry fellow from someplace far away got super mad at Superman and super killed him to death. Superman was subsequently replaced by four new Supermen. Supes is kind of like a cockroach, you never really get rid of him. Of the four new Supermen, only John Henry Irons was truly a man and had to build the super around himself. He designed a pretty intense suit of armor that was something like Iron Man meets Superman with a DIY Mjolnir tossed in for dramatic effect. It also had smashing ability!
Taking "Man of Steel" very literally, Irons made the Steel suit to look like a very shiny, intimidating Goliath complete with the red cape and "S" logo.
He was clearly the most noble of the new Supermen, just a regular dude who was trying to take up the slack in a world without a Superman. He used his skill and technology to do good. His armor gave him a pretty solid set of Superman-like abilities including flight and enhanced strength. He also enjoyed superhuman durability to withstand things like bullets and assaults from villains like Metallo and the Eradicator. All in all, it was a decent interpretation of Superman brought down to the mortal level.
15 THE BEETLE
It's not often you find an armored hero or villain who is also a woman. Power suits really see to be a man's game in comics for the most part, but that has been changing! Steel's mantle was taken up by his niece once, and of course there's Ironheart and Rescue from Iron Man. Who can forget Lady Stilt-Man? But of all the power suits in the comics universe, it's the Spider-Man villain the Beetle who is a stand-out in this regard. The Beetle armor, or variations of it, have been worn by numerous women over the years. Wearers include Janice Lincoln, Elizabeth Vaughn and Leila Davis.
The Beetle is a super-powered bug suit, which relies on the bug theme more or less depending on which version you're talking about, as there have been numerous Beetles over the years. In general you can expect flight, the ability to stick to walls and some super strength. The Janice Lincoln Beetle had machine guns and even a bazooka at her disposal. Why? Because some bugs are more explosive than others. While never one of Spider-Man's most dangerous adversaries, the fact remains it's a hard bug to squish and has made some pretty cool use of the insect theme over the years.
14 RAGMAN
Though not acknowledged as much as it should be, half of the appeal of any suit of power armor is the visual look of it. We all know Lex Luthor's power suit is ugly as sin, but it makes up for it in other ways. Most power suits are variations on the same basic "man in a can" theme to a greater or lesser degree. And then there's Ragman, who may have the most awesome power suit ever conceived.
The Ragman suit is literally scraps of fabric hastily stitched together from souls.
No matter how cool Iron Man gets, he's never sucking a soul into the Mark VII. Ragman's suit will take the soul of someone and add it as a scrap of cloth. This grants Ragman the ability to see the memories of the soul. It can add their strength to his own and teleport him across great distances. Now sure, there's the downside that the suit, being made of fabric, has an intense vulnerability to fire. That weakness was actually added on purpose, so that if it fell into evil hands it could be dispatched easily. Oh, and also it tends to leave soulless husks lying around, but that's not a weakness so much as an unfortunate side effect.
13 DARKHAWK
Marvel's Darkhawk is a bit like what you would get if Iron Man and Wolverine had a baby bird that never got as popular as that set up makes it seem like it should have. He's always been something of a second-string character. He did manage to get fleshed out enough to introduce an origin for the Darkhawk armor and the Fraternity of Raptors, a group of intergalactic powerhouses who all wield similar armor and weaponry and are just unpleasant to be around.
The Darkhawk armor is actually an android that the user's consciousness enters. It's mind armor in a sense. Your physical body isn’t at risk of being harmed inside, but you probably won't want to die inside the thing because... well, when do you ever want to die with your consciousness inside bird-themed space armor? Once inside the Darkhawk, you get a nice complement of powers including the ability to travel through space and projected energy weapons. The other members of the Fraternity of Raptors patrol the universe as a kind of beefed up Nova Corps, meting out a cruel and brutal version of justice while being able to simultaneously stand up to some brutal beatings from the likes of Iron Man or Venom.
12 GUARDIAN
When it comes to Canadian superheroes, you have some heavy hitters like Wolverine and Deadpool, but their citizenship doesn't come into play a heck of a lot. In the grand scheme of things there's only the odd story line that requires a deep dive back into their past when weird stuff was afoot in Manitoba, the home of all nefarious, governmental mutant experimentation. There's also Captain Canuck, currently published by Chapterhouse Comics, who’s been Canada's Captain America since the mid 1970s.
There's another Canadian super team out there, Alpha Flight, led by the super suited Guardian, who deserves a little maple leaf love.
Guardian's powers have changed somewhat over the years. Originally he was a scientist who used a super-powered exoskeleton suit that was also remarkably form fitting. It granted him the powers of flight, a force field and energy blasts. It was also one of those fashion forward patriotic designs you can never get enough of in comics. The design included a giant maple leaf and the traditional red and white of the Canadian flag. This is important because you're going to absolutely know what country the guy shooting you from the sky calls home.
11 DOCTOR OCTOPUS
Otto Octavius is more than just an incredibly alliterative name, he's arguably one of the best, if not the best, Spider-Man villains of all time. His power comes from a nice mix of massive ego, genius intelligence and, of course, four insanely powerful robot arms he wears on a harness. While most super suits are a full-body affair, Doc Ock opted for simplicity. He designed only the parts necessary to assist him in scientific work that later adapted strangely well to super-villainy.
The tentacles Dr. Octopus uses, which have received upgrades over the years to adamantium and carbonadium, have managed to go toe-to-toe with characters like Strong Guy and even the Hulk. And he actually won against Hulk, which is not something most people ever get to say. The arms give him over a 20 foot reach and, of course, can lift tons of weight, or just peel Iron Man out of his own armor like opening a can of tuna. At one point, after years of physical beatings took their toll, he even constructed a full body suit that replaced his human arms and legs with 4 more tentacles. This effectively making him a giant, fully mechanical octoman. He really takes this metaphor seriously.
10 RHINO
Rhino is one of the oldest villains in the Spiderverse, created in 1966 to be one of the most popular kind of characters – a giant, super strong beast guy. It works for Hulk and Juggernaut. It works for Colossus and Thing . You know it'll work for a guy with a horn on his head. Later on, however, when Marvel retooled some characters for its Ultimate line, Rhino got himself a pretty major upgrade.
He received an impressive new suit of armor that we sort of, kind of got to see in the Spider-Man movies most of us don't remember happening.
When he was retooled as more than just a giant man with giant strength, Rhino became a criminal who stole a top-secret government weapon – the R.H.I.N.O. suit which, as anyone could guess, stood for Robotism Heuristic Intelligence Navigable Operative. Is "robotism" even a word? Well, vaguely, but who cares? It's a mechanical rhinoceros suit that can run straight through a bank vault. That's some top quality military technology and it took the Rhino from a goofy villain whose costume logistics were questionable at best to a more gritty, realistic angry kind of villainy that you'd figure makes more sense for an international criminal.
9 BOOSTER GOLD
Credit where credit is due, Booster Gold has been far more heroic than his character was designed to be. Writers have helped Booster evolve from a futuristic pseudo-Kardashian glory-hound into a full-fledged hero who has literally saved the world. And he does this while still under the guise of a buffoon only concerned with the optics of looking like a hero and being famous. It's like if an Instagram star were secretly saving the world when the cameras were off. And doing it in really form-fitting future armor.
Booster's powers are all from the future, so he's naturally more advanced than present heroes or villains. He's used several pieces of tech together to make himself a formidable force. When Booster was retconned to be a time-faring hero saving the future from nefarious doings, the power he wielded became much more clear; he was literally saving the universe. In fact, Booster Gold's time travel abilities have been integral in helping Superman save his family and all of reality. That's a heck of a contribution to the world of heroics from a dude who was introduced as a goofball.
8 VENOM
Of all the armor and power suits you'll find in any comic book universe, none come close to being quite what the Venom symbiote is. With the obvious exception of the other symbiotes, Venom is very unique. Unlike other power suits, this was never manufactured, or designed, or built with a purpose. This is a living thing that, bonded with Eddie Brock, became an instant classic in the Marvel Universe. Venom is just a cool idea. What if your costume was alive, and super powerful, and not entirely moral or heroic? And what if it still needed you to get anything done?
That's how a symbiote gets down, and it's a lot of fun to read.
Arguably Venom could be higher on the list. If you decided to expand the breadth of what we mean by Venom and include the whole Venomverse idea, there are many Venoms. Venomized Dr. Doom and Venomized Dr. Strange would absolutely be formidable foes and should make anyone think twice about granting a PhD to a symbiote. But even good ol' Eddie Brock Venom is amazing with what he can do: the powers of Spider-Man with enhanced strength and aggression. Most importantly, he has an absolutely beastly visage with an insane tongue. There's no other suit out there offering that.
7 BIG GUY
Frank Miller is responsible for a lot of great moments in comic history, but his Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot is often overlooked. The story was a lot easier to digest than some of his work, and Big Guy is a pretty great character overall. He's the all-American robot hero. His purpose is to fight the terrible monsters from beyond when regular weapons won't do. Only problem is Big Guy isn't a robot, he's a fake robot. Big Guy is a man inside a suit. But the suit is an unstoppable piece of work that can fly, is several stories tall and makes the best use of elbows since Jean Claude Van Damme by housing several machine guns in them. Normal robots have one elbow machine gun, but Big Guy has about four.
Big Guy was a throwback to sci fi of the 1950s, a Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow sort of aesthetic. There are obvious nods to Japanese sci-fi with Godzilla and Astroboy tossed into the mix. But the novel idea of a robot who isn't a robot really made the character stand out, and the suit was just a cool design with a perhaps not surprising amount of depth.
6 BLUE BEETLE
One of the first superheroes that runs afoul of Doomsday back when he was introduced was the Blue Beetle, and man, he did not stand up to that fight very well at all. And of course, how could he? This was the dude who ended up killing Superman, so the Blue Beetle didn't really have a chance at all. He was used to demonstrate to readers just how serious Doomsday was, because the rampaging DC hulk beat the living tar out of the then-Beetle, Ted Kord.
Reyes has demonstrated that this particular suit of sentient, symbiotic yet-mostly-homicidal armor is no slouch.
As Blue Beetle evolved as a character, so too did his powers and abilities. Unlike Kord, Jamie Reyes' Blue Beetle managed to bond with the Scarab that provides him the suit he wears. He's demonstrated this particular suit of sentient, symbiotic yet-mostly-homicidal armor is no slouch. Thanks to some adaptive technology, the Beetle can hold his own against the likes of a Green Lantern of even Superman. Its power cuts through Green Lantern energy projections and can also create Kryptonite weapons to counter Kryptonian physiology. A the same time, it shields Reyes from any attacks from those sources. Without the tempering influence of Jamie, it's possible the Blue Beetle could very well destroy the whole world, since that's technically what it was made to do.
5 IRON MAN
You can't do a power suit list without Iron Man, who's arguably the world's most famous power suit hero and likely always will be, at least until another film franchise makes several billion dollars. (Why is no one making a Crimson Dynamo series for Netflix yet?) But you can't just pick a single Iron Man suit, so this has to be a catchall for the 1000 or so different suits that have existed in comics and films over the years – Hulk Buster, Silver Centurion, Mark XXXVII: The Bleeding Edge and countless others. Tony Stark has more suits than Young MC had rhymes. Google that joke, it's not bad.
Why doesn't Tony rank higher on the list? Well, it's a complex issue. To start with, as cool as all the suits are, there are just so many suits. If he just made one really awesome suit, he wouldn't need a million other suits and this is a ranking of power suits in general, not just Iron Man suits. A lot of those suits have been busted up or just forgotten after they appeared. Moreover, Tony Stark is a flawed dude. That makes him a great character, but also means he can't be top of the heap. He needs those weaknesses to keep him interesting and relatable.
4 LEX'S WARSUIT
Lex Luthor never really needed a super suit to be a great villain. Maybe that's why Lex's warsuit has to be near the top of any list of suits. He was so good as regular, human Lex Luthor that, when he actually put effort into making himself super, the results were incredible. Lex's warsuit is a mishmash of human and Kryptonian tech. There's also a splash of assistance from Darkseid thrown in to make sure it really stands up to a beating. This thing is tough enough to actually go toe to toe with Superman. That's not something a regular human is generally ever able to do. Whether it's the old school suit with Kryptonite weapons inside, or the Motherbox version that made Lex essentially his own version of Superman.
It's a beastly piece of tech, but Lex probably isn’t winning any awards for how fashionable the suit is.
The clunky green and purple armor doesn't really inspire a lot of fear. But the man is an evil genius so you have to cut him some slack when it comes to the refined details like that. The suit has withstood about 35 years of abuse and even got an Orange Lantern makeover once, so it's obviously a force to be reckoned with.
3 X-O MANOWAR
Marvel and DC have the market very nearly cornered on unstoppable forces of power-suited justice and/or villainy. But it's worth remembering that Valiant comics made a super suited character a cornerstone of its universe. The X-O Manowar suit is the kind of thing that absolutely stands up to any of the power suits from the Big Two. Plus it's kind of alive and as old as dirt, so it's got more of a rich history than just a clunky tin can that shoots lasers.
The armor from X-O Manowar was actually worshipped like a god by an entire race of beings who could never find anyone worthy to wear it – the armor just killed everyone. But when it did find a host, a human of course, it proved itself to be one of the most powerful forces in the universe. It helped its new owner, Aric, become a King. That's not hyperbole, this armor is legit. The wearer of the armor gets a pretty much unstoppable weapon that can traverse the universe. The armor assisted in saving Earth from an alien scourge called the Torment who seem to have a thing for ending all life across the universe whenever they find it, which is super uncool.
2 HELLBAT ARMOR
Everyone loves Batman for a reason – Batman is awesome. He exists in a world alongside Superman and Wonder Woman and the Flash, who all have fantastically amazing powers, but his abilities are all the result of his intellect, will and training. There's nothing extraordinary about Batman, except for maybe the funding that makes it all possible. He's a hero who goes toe-to-toe with gods and still manages to come out on top. And then one day there was the Hellbat armor.
With the help of the rest of the Justice League, the Hellbat armor was made to put Bruce Wayne on even footing with the most powerful foe in the universe.
Fact is, Batman does need to sit out some fights. He shouldn't be equipped to handle someone like Darkseid no matter what he has in his utility belt. With the help of the rest of the Justice League, the Hellbat armor was made to put Bruce Wayne on even footing with the most powerful foe in the universe. Forged in the sun by Superman, using the tech of Cyborg and endurance tested by the Flash, the Hellbat made Batman a monster. Sure, it used his own life force to fuel it, which maybe should have been tweaked in the design phase to instead run on batteries or even ethanol, but whatever. This was armor to pit the world's greatest detective against the universe's greatest threat.
1 DR. DOOM
Dr. Doom is at the heart of what it is to have cool armor, taking the look to an extreme you'd never believe possible with characters like Iron Man or Steel. He is arguably one of the best villains in the history of comics with a rich and in-depth background and personality. Doom's thirst for power is pretty much unrivalled across the genre. This is a man who looks at the universe and thinks "why don't I have total control over all of this?" Then he sets about actually getting total control of all of it; pretty successfully, too.
Throughout his time as a villain, and sometimes hero, Doom has managed to master the simple powers of teleportation, mind control, robotics, energy projection, sorcery and time travel all to the detriment of any who would stand against him. This was initially the Fantastic Four and then broadened to the whole of the Marvel Universe. He's challenged its cosmically powered beings who have also proven completely incapable of thwarting Doom. The man wielded the Infinity Gauntlet once. He's also been the god of the entire universe before because that's what one man with the most powerful suit of armor and a genius-level intellect can do if he sets his mind to it.