Awesome / Child of the Storm

Moments pages are Spoilers Off. You Have Been Warned

Now divided by book:

Child of the Storm

• Thor taking Snape down a peg or five with a speech first thanking him for saving Harry's life, then making clear that he knows exactly what's been going on and warning Snape not to try anything.
• Thor managing not to smite the Dursleys. That said, it is a near thing...
• Staring down Skurge and Amora, and making it very clear to them that they do not want to mess with him. As it's noted, Thor previously wouldn't have hit a girl, but James Potter dueled a lot of female Death Eaters.
• Likewise giving Flash Thompson and a gang of bullies a lesson in respect, without actually hurting anyone.
• Casually controlling five powerful tornadoes and using them to hoover up the rest of the undead army at the Battle of the M4.
• When his classic comics catchphrase is used at long last, it does not disappoint:
  GRAVEMOSS! I WOULD HAVE WORDS WITH THEE!
  • This is immediately followed by a lightning bolt about three or four times the size of the largest previously recorded.
• While worrying desperately for his son, he manages to restrain an enormously powerful storm and pick off a Death Eater trained by Baron Zemo with a precisely aimed lightning bolt. Now that's what you call multitasking.
• Proving the alternative application of some of his powers by using gales of Razor Wind to slice away at a Hive Mind of Slendermen.
• Channeling an absolutely insane amount of storm power in order to kill the undead kraken unleashed on New York, hitting it at supersonic speed.
• When rejoining the battle in chapter 76, he quickly reminds people that even without Mjolnir, he's still the God of Thunder and Lightning, by putting the latter to good use.
• In Chapter 77:
  • Tag-teaming with Harry against a bunch of demon dragons. His part is throwing Mjolnir through several of them, including three in a line.
  • Much like Wanda in the previous episode, finding the time to tease Harry and doing an Affectionate Gesture to the Head.
• Chapter 78:
  • Tag teaming with Hercules against the demon infestation.
  • Working with Lily to enter Harry's mind and free him from Cthon's influence.
• Harry's epic calling out of Odin. Overlaps with Tear Jerker.
• Harry antagonises the Disir to get their attention as part of The Plan. They threaten him and ask why they shouldn't just eat Uhtred. Harry responds with a Badass Boast.
  Harry: Why? Because if you do that and you'll have to devour me as well. Because I don’t care if it takes me until I rule Asgard myself, I will do everything in my power to see you destroyed if you lay one finger on them [his friends]. No matter where you run, no matter where you hide, no matter what you do... hurt them and I will burn you!
  • After that, during the actual escape, he pauses to say this to 13 monsters that it took Bor at the height of his powers to banish, he makes a speech that is a pure case of Refuge in Audacity, crossing over with Funny Moments:
    Harry: I just want to say a few things. One, your hospitality is terrible. Two, you’re really ugly. Three, you’re really thick if you’re going to trust anyone related to Loki. Four, you’re not the first soul eating monsters I’ve met, and you’re not the scariest either. You don’t even make me relive my worst memories. I know just the word for you: Pathetic. *Disir snarl* Oh hush, I’m getting to the good bit. Five, Expecto Patronum, suckers.
• Chapter 54 has him go after the Ravenclaw Quidditch team for their complicity in the bullying of Luna Lovegood. One round of Deadly Dodging, with the aid of the Weasley Twins, later, all seven of them are in hospital with several broken bones each, sending a clear message as to his level of tolerance towards bullying: non-existent.
  • Chapter 55 arguably makes it more awesome, when Harry realises the consequences of his actions, and apologises to the Ravenclaw team. But, at the same time, he makes it clear that anyone who picks on anyone else is going to answer to him.
• In a similar vein in Chapter 58, he uses his physical presence and a few carefully chosen words to make the older brother of Bobby Drake back off. Then, he uses the disarming charm to detach the other boy's ski. Hilarity Ensues.
• In Chapter 60, after being powered-up by a mountain spirit, he is quite capable of beating the crap out of most everyone he goes against. Starting with a huge pillar of fire that can be seen for miles around, and makes a hole on a mountain, which he intended to be the "small" setting.
  • And when he intentionally goes big, the resulting blast lights up the area for over thirty miles around, causes ripples on the Astral Plane large enough to be sensed in Berlin, and punches Project Ultimatum into Russia. And he still has plenty more left in the tank.
  • He then goes head-to-head with Ultimatum, piloted by Zemo, in the air and holds his own. His Pre-Asskicking One-Liner:
    No. No more running.
• Apparently by the time he's 17, Harry will be powerful enough (or have the means) to travel most of 50 years back in time.
• When HYDRA attacks Hogwarts, Harry — backed by Freki and Geri — goes full-on Prince of Asgard, charging into battle and mowing down everything in his path. And after Luna is killed, he throws off his restraints and manages to go toe-to-toe with Daken. It doesn't end well, but still: full marks for effort.
• Chapter 74 has him finally snap into full on Tranquil Fury after Thor is shot with an enchanted bullet and put into a coma, stopping 'hundreds, thousands' of bullets without apparently making any real effort, before dropping them for effect. When HYDRA's field leader takes a child hostage, Harry responds by forcing him to put his own gun to his head and looks like he's seriously considering making him pull the trigger. At the same time, he rips the guns from the couple of dozen HYDRA troopers, turning them to face their owners, and picks up the two vans they arrived in and crushes them against one another. Eventually, Jane talks him down and he settles for making them lie flat on the floor, hands on their heads and sandwiching their guns between the crushed vans, but it's a close run thing. Most reviewers compared it to Neo, while Word of God has indicated that it was intended to evoke Magneto's "you homo sapiens and your guns" scene in X-Men and underscore the running theme that Harry, sweet and well-meaning as he is, is only a bad day or two away from turning into the next Magneto.
  "You people and your guns. Did you really think that they would protect you from me?"
• In Chapter 75:
  • A retroactive one from Chapter 1: Harry was able to reach Asgard with his psychic powers, which he knew nothing about, while he was being attacked by Dementors, and awaken his uncle. Charles Xavier, the most powerful psychic in the world, needed Cerebro, a nod in the right direction from Loki and all of his mental power just to be able to speak with Odin. Make the calculations.
  • A large number of HYDRA agents carrying Deity-class weapons have surrounded him and his friends. Harry snaps his fingers once and the agents drop unconscious.
  • The rematch between Harry and Daken. This time, Daken doesn't even get close to Harry because the latter telekinetically throws him all over the place hard enough to create craters, roasts him with conjured fire and even bludgeons the people fighting his friends with him.
• In Chapter 76:
  • Pays Gravemoss back for what he did to Sif under Paris by telekinetically opening his chest and ripping his heart out of it. It doesn't kill him, but it does hurt him a lot.
  • Psychically shields Diana's empathic senses from the hate and rage of the demons attacking them, while simultaneously fighting off his own share.
  • Working with Carol, is able to blast Gravemoss out of the building and into the Thames - through Battersea Bridge.
  • Calming down a quickly awakened and disoriented Hulk.
• In Chapter 77:
  • Fighting alongside his father, his role being telekinetically pushing demons into position for Thor to hurl Mjolnir through and crushing those who are getting away.
  • Tag-teaming a multi-headed dragon with Carol, one of them distracting it while the other is described as playing whack-a-mole. All while having a discussion about it being stupid enough to merit entry in the Darwin Awards. And then blocking its throats with telekinetic energy, preventing it from breathing fire, making it explode from the ensuing backfire.
• In Chapter 78:
  • Prevents Chthon from attempting to take over Wanda by intercepting him, something described as 'very noble and very, very stupid.'
  • With just a little prompting from his parents, he manages to kick Chthon out of his mind and out of the universe.
    "I never wanted power. I never wanted to be a god. And I am done playing."
  • And then helps restore the damage caused by Chthon's entrance.
• In chapter 22, Loki creating a literal sea serpent out of water, infusing it with magic and using it to put out magical fire. He even took the time to add colour and detail to it.
• Simultaneously creating a world wide spy network (in such a way that none of his fellow Spymasters can stop, even if they're aware of what he's doing), gaining a reputation as a philanthropist and actually helping out the deprived.
• Calming down a panicking Thor when Harry is kidnapped. Given Thor's temper, this is not an easy task.
  • Calming him down again when he gets angry after dwelling on Pettigrew's betrayal.
• Binding an entire battlefield's worth of spirits and stopping them from escaping to wreak havoc.
• Hunting down and disabling six separate Death Eaters trained by Baron Zemo without even getting out of second gear.
• Turning into a giant serpent in order to hold down the undead kraken attacking New York long enough for Thor to finish it off.
• Chapter 75:
  • As soon as he gets back in action, he teleports to London and destroys a street and three quarters of the demons within.
  • His entrance in battle is bad enough, in HYDRA's point of view, to be worse than a gigantic sea serpent.
• Chapter 77: Loki using the nursery rhyme Oranges and Lemons as part of a spell, tapping into power of the city of London itself to close all the largest portals at once.
• During the Second World War, Steve worked together with Dumbledore, the Howling Commandos, and Wolverine against the Grindelwald-HYDRA alliance. At one point, he raided Nurmengard.
• Steve's simple remark on seeing the raging supernatural storm in chapter 59 of Book I.
  "I've fought in worse."
• Steve overpowering one of the Slendermen with raw muscle, noting how that immediately makes the rest pay attention and freak out slightly, because mortals are not supposed to be able to do that.
• Steve hasing down the Winter Soldier while atop a sinking and listing Helicarrier.
  • Going toe to toe with the former, the Bogeyman of the Cold War, on several occasions - losing the first round (after having been ambushed), drawing the second, and were it not for a critically timed distraction, he would have won the third.
• Steve's last line in chapter 76 is a magically enhanced parade ground roar and highly effective Battle Cry. You know the one.
  "AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!"
• In Chapter 77, Steve's Hold the Line next to Knights of the Cross Sanya and Michael Carpenter and Sir Dane, the Black Knight, against hundreds of demons.
• In Chapter 78, Steve is the first to tell everyone that they are best suited with the task of banishing all remaining demons, ignoring his many injuries.
• It requires a bit of Fridge Brilliance, but Magneto says that Steve rescued him from Auschwitz. Given that, in real life, Auschwitz wasn't liberated until almost a year after the Valkyrie went down, it speaks volumes of the Howling Commandos' martial ability that they were able to penetrate Nazi territory that much quicker.
• After Lily and James were "killed," Fury (still a young man) broke into Lucius Malfoy's home, smashed his wand, permanently damaged his leg, possibly left other physical scars which Malfoy conceals, and burned his house down around him with what Fury later reveals was napalm.
  • During the same incident, it is revealed that, having disabled Malfoy and left him to die, he noticed baby Draco at the top of the stairs. Despite the fact that the house was on fire, the stairs were blocked off and he was nursing a missing eye, he ran through the flames and up the collapsing stairs to grab the baby, the son it should be said of a man he utterly despises, then got the hell out, saving his life. Nick Fury is pure concentrated awesome.
• The fact that, as a young spy, pretty much working alone as the Order's de facto spymaster, Fury took on Lucius Malfoy, who is in this verse a fully fledged Magnificent Bastard, and the might of HYDRA and while he was losing, put up a serious fight.
• Recruiting Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel to work for him after the Philosopher's Stone is destroyed by offering them the chance to have children, and keeping them secret enough that not even Pierce knows about them.
• Chapter 42 is essentially the Nick Fury Is Awesome Show:
  • Luring Baron Von Strucker out into the open by dangling the temptations of himself (Director of SHIELD), Psylocke (key member of the rebuilding MI13 and potentially powerful enemy) and War Machine (the US army's most trusted pilot and a key confidant of Tony, being close to the Avengers) and forcing him to act before he was ready.
  • Taking out one of HYDRA's bruisers and forcing their top telepath (the Shadow King) to cut and run.
  • Humiliating Von Strucker and sending him to spread the terror among the rest of HYDRA.
    • And at the end of this, the most epic Shrek reference ever.
      Fury: This is the part where you run away.
  • Acquiring a valuable intelligence asset (Narcissa Malfoy) who will doubtless be only too happy to screw over the man who tried to kill her.
• Fury intimidated Auror Dawlish into backing off. By holding a knife to his balls.
• Chapter 75: Turns out Fury had a back-up to the Avengers in the form of the Shadow Initiative: Wolverine, Black Panther, Captain Mar-Vell, Havok, War Machine, Sirius Black, Wanda Maximoff, Harry Dresden and Namor, in addition to Clint and Natasha. He manages to meet with them with no one in SHIELD being the wiser. Then he sets them on HYDRA's base.
• Chapter 77: Knowing how Malfoy thinks, Fury monitored all out-going communications, waiting until the man called for help, then getting the name of the man he called: Alexander Pierce.
  • He also had a strike team (vetted by the Psi-Division) in place and ready to go beforehand.
• On his first visit to Asgard, Tony taking on Volstagg in a bout to show how good his suit is. The bout ends with Tony choke-slamming one of the biggest badasses in the Nine Realms to the floor. While Volstagg is stated to have been holding back, not wanting to crush Tony, he's still one of the best fighters in the Nine Realms, with millennia of combat experience and serious physical power to boot.
• The astonishment of just about every artificer in Asgard at the Iron Man armour, which, designed with inferior Earth materials, can turn the wearer into a physical match for anyone short of Thor and his physical peers.
  • It's also noted that if he had access to Asgardian materials, he could build something that would make the Destroyer look like a toy. Going by the Prometheus armour, this is in no way an exaggeration.
• When faced with the Winter Soldier without his armour, his first instinct (to his own surprise) is to put himself between the Soldier and Pepper and the kids.
• In Chapter 74, Tony faced with Zola seizing control of his Tower, dodges and out-fights all his other armours (being controlled by Zola) at once, then intentionally overloads the building's arc reactor and blows it up (with himself still inside, barely surviving) in order to keep HYDRA from stealing all his technology.
• Chapter 75:
  • Tony is kept sedated by HYDRA because they know perfectly well how dangerous the man can be if awake.
  • You know in chapter 34 when it mentions that Tony explicitly avoided building an armour out of Asgardian materials because he was scared of how powerful it would be? He changed his mind. In his free time, he made a suit called Project Prometheus powerful enough to deal with god-sized problems which he hid at Hogwarts. While incomplete, it's adamantium armoured and armed with Destroyer based weaponry, with the few conventional weapons being described by a flabbergasted Peter Wisdom as 'punctuation'.
• In Chapter 77:
  • Tony has a Plan to deal with a demon dragon: fly into its mouth and destroy it from the inside.
  • Multitasking in the battle: he locks down HYDRA's largest troop concentrations, turns on the sprinklers and puts the Crazy Frog song on a loop.
• In Chapter 78: Tony punches Doctor Strange after learning what he is having Jean-Paul do, despite the risks. Not many dare do that, and fewer get away with it.
• The Hulk shielding Harry from a robot attack and taking them on (literally) singlehandedly.
• Bruce's Badass Boast.
  Rest assured Thor. We will find Harry. We will find the people that have taken him. And Hulk will smash.
• Gets a good moment in chapter 60 when he gives that line.
  Don't make me angry, Mister McGee. You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!.
• In Chapter 75, HYDRA knows well enough to keep him sedated, on the grounds that an awakened Bruce leads to Hulk.
• Chapter 78: Hulk repeats his Metronomic Man Mashing from the film. Against CHTHON! It shocks everyone, including Chthon himself. As Loki vaguely remarks:
  Loki: It is so satisfying to see that happen to someone else.
• Clint's Improbable Aiming Skills. Ricocheting an arrow off three walls to split an apple ten feet behind you may be completely impossible if you don't have a magically enhanced pair of eyes, but it is also unbelievably cool.
• The fact that he's universally recognised as the best archer in the Nine Realms. His only equal is Prince Faradei of Alfheim, a.k.a. the real life Legolas.
• Saving Wisdom's life, first by calling on Thor (because exploding arrows are the only things that would really be sure of taking the veidrdraugar and it would end up taking Wisdom too) to get them - quite literally - off Wisdom's back, then picking off the ones attempting to interfere in Agent Drew's rescue op.
• Chapter 75: Clint manages to kill several demons in just a few seconds by shooting them with explosive arrows while riding a flying motorbike into battle!
  • Staring down an angry Wanda Maximoff deserves mention in and of itself.
• Odin gets a few:
  • Going up against Varnae, previous King of the Grey Court, when he was still a prince of Asgard, and drawing more or less even.
  • Along with his brothers and Kal-El I, taking on Cul, the God of Fear and his older brother, and sealing off him and his armies in another timeline.
  • Restraining Thor after the latter went into the Warrior's Madness—it's mentioned that no other Asgardian had a chance.
  • According to Huginn and Muninn, Odin once teleported Krypton's entire solar system into Asgard space and back again without dropping a single mote of dust. Sure, it tired him out, but that alone gives a clear picture of just how powerful and skilled he is.
  • At the end of the first book, he goes toe-to-toe with Chthon, in a duel that would've normally destroyed the entire galaxy as a side-effect.
• Natasha's pretty subdued in this book, but...
  • Breaking free of the Red Room's conditioning, when she had been broken and brainwashed since she was a little girl.
  • Fighting in battles such as the Battle of the M4 and the Battle of London, proving that a Badass Normal can be just as dangerous as any powered superhero.
  • According to Bucky Barnes, who should know, she is just about equal to the Winter Soldier when it comes to stealth and espionage.
• Sif is the Goddess of War. In the ancient warrior culture of Asgard, she, who is also hinted to from fairly low ranking nobility at best, was picked by Odin to be the Goddess of War. That is pure awesome in and of itself.
  • Sif nutting Fandral into unconsciousness. From a seated position.
  • I As barely more than a teenager, fighting Fenris, surviving being chewed and swallowed by him, then cutting her way out of his stomach with only one hand. And then picking up that hand and walking to the nearest settlement all while chewed up (literally), beaten up, suffering from having her hand bitten off and oh yeah, being covered in stomach acids. Sif is made of awesome.
  • Being acknowledged as Fandral's match with a blade when he is considered to be the finest swordsman in the Nine Realms and is a specialist, and Thor notes that she could beat any two of the Warriors Three simultaneously, and take on all three and come out honors fairly even.
• Peter Wisdom a.k.a. Regulus Black. The fact that he's Nick Fury's protégé is just the start. He also:
  • Went toe to toe with the Winter Soldier and survived.
  • Became the head of MI13 at 31 (admittedly, this is in part because he's one of the very few senior agents, but still).
  • Masterminded the defence of Britain from Gravemoss' army, organising the RAF, the Navy, the Army, the Ministry, the Avengers and Excalibur into a coherent battle in a matter of moments.
  • Went toe to toe with one of the veidrdraugar and killed it.
  • When he finds out the secret of Hermione being Wanda's daughter, he uses it to blackmail Wanda. But he doesn't threaten to make it public. Instead, he threatens to tell Hermione the truth, which keeps Hermione out of danger while simultaneously bothering Wanda more. Magnificent, Manipulative, and 100% bastard, all at the same time.
  • In an Offscreen Moment of Awesome, he's destroyed three of Voldemort's horcruxes^notePresumably Syltherins's Locket (the one he died going after in canon), the Gaunt Ring, and Hufflepuff's cup. Leaving Ravenclow's diadem and Harry, the latter of which became a non-issue after chapter 70 of the first book .
  • Along with other MI13 agents, taking on the HYDRA team that assaulted their base and defeating them.
  • Barely even blinking when he gets shoved against a wall by an absolutely furious Sean Cassidy (remember, a man who's given Fury nightmares), and getting him to back off by making it absolutely clear who's the scarier of the two. Hint: It's not Cassidy.
  • Delivers an absolutely brutal "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Cornelius Fudge after the HYDRA attacks, and informing him that he will have Fudge on trial for "criminal negligence, treason, being a fucking idiot, and whatever else the Crown Prosecution Services can come up with."
  • Chapter 76 shows him finally activating his secret defence known as Project Wolftrap. What is it? Why, it's the HMS Belfast, reactivated and rearmed with state of the art weaponry, which for a good while, proves more than a match for HYDRA's rather battered Dreadnought Helicarrier.
• Carol Danvers gets a fair few. Her Establishing Character Moment: responding to the unwelcome attentions of a Corrupt Corporate Executive by kicking him in the balls and laying him out flat. While wearing a fancy dress, no less.
  • Being the niece of Jack O'Neill, cousin of Agent 13 and great-granddaughter of Peggy Carter and Steve Rogers shows that she's of heroic blood - and she matches and outmatches the lot of them.
  • In Chapter 60, a double whammy: she proves to be a skilled strategist, enough for the Winter Soldier to consider her the greatest threat (well, after Harry and Diana leave the scene), and later, when she sacrifices herself to save the others, after they lose their upgrades. She survives, but the intention is there.
  • This bears repeating. Of the three remaining, there's her, an experienced speedster, and a (temporarily) fully grown Asgardian... and the Winter Soldier sees her as the biggest threat.
  • In chapter 74, also an Heartwarming Moment, she went nose to nose with Sif simply to ensure that Harry wouldn't be alone. Fandral remarks, impressed, that that's the longest he's seen anyone stare down Sif in centuries. While it was unnecessary, Sif was certainly impressed.
  • In Chapter 75:
    • She gets a Ring of Power from Doctor Strange to compensate for not being bullet-proof. The Green Lantern Ring. It also turns out that she's too stubborn to die.
    • She also goes toe to toe with a classic comics Extremis soldier, armed only with a shield. In the comics, one of those curbstomped Iron Man. She holds her own.
  • In Chapter 76:
    • Working with Harry, blasts Gravemoss out of the building, through Battersea Bridge, and into the Thames.
    • Simply rips down any barricades in the group's way with the Green Lantern Ring.
  • In Chapter 77: She has a great time using the Green Lantern ring; among other things, she creates an Andre the Giant construct to simultaneously put seven dragons in a headlock.
    • Further context for this is given in Unfinished Business, when she underlines just how terrifyingly powerful it is - "someone decided that the power to save a world needs the power to break one." Oh, and the Ring has a mind of its own. She kept it completely under control. Not only that, but the fact that it was willing to let her use it at all says a lot about her, given that Strange states it doesn't usually take teenage wielders.
  • She's given an uru shield by Odin in acknowledgement of her deeds and as a sign of favour. As she notes, originally she thought it was 'just' an uru version of Steve's shield, but it later turns to be capable of coming to her hand when commanded, as well as absorbing and discharging massive amounts of energy at her mental command. As she points out in Unfinished Business, it's probably capable of a lot more, too. That's no small gift, and almost certainly a sign of Odin's interest in her future.
• Jean-Paul is much more dangerous than he lets on.
  • In chapter 60, what tactic does , a Fragile Speedster, use against a tank sized werewolf? A rock to the eye, thrown at Mach speeds.
  • In Chapter 69, we get a demonstration of the lingering power boost Jean-Paul got from the Genius Loci (later confirmed to be access to the Speed Force), as he runs from New York to Kansas... by heading east. Meaning he runs across the world, including running on water (several times, presumably), hitting an average speed of somewhere in the neighbourhood of Mach 150, even reaching relativistic Doppler shift, before eventually stopping. And without being even remotely winded afterwards, either.
  • And he does all that in the span of a mere ten minutes.
  • In Chapter 75:
    • Harry's team (Carol, Diana, Jean-Paul and Uhtred) are shot at with a machine-gun. Jean-Paul catches all of the bullets with a top hat that is not even damaged by the bullets. The shooter was Daken, by the way.
    • In the subsequent fight, Harry notes that the woman Jean-Paul fought is nowhere to be seen... beyond a few splotches of blood here and there. And he hasn't even got a hair out of place. Harry, an Omega Class demigod psychic and Phoenix host in the midst of Tranquil Fury makes a note to never, ever piss off Jean-Paul.
  • In Chapter 76:
    • When Gravemoss tries to destroy the group with a massive energy blast, he grabs the others and shifts them into Bullet Time, giving them a chance to figure out how to handle the situation. It should be mentioned that he didn't even know for sure if he could do it beforehand.
    • Hits some enemies so fast, they just seem to explode.
  • In Chapter 77, he's so effective at destroying demons and so fast that they can only associate his trailing golden lightning with death.
  • In Chapter 78, he runs around the world to accelerate. Takes the time to save Clark and Chloe from a falling building. And manages to reach the speed of light in order to punch Chthon with infinite kinetic energy even though he knows it could end with him dead, which, fortunately, does not happen.
    • And just before he begins, Frigga warns him that Chthon will catch him. In a homage to Kingdom Come, he replies:
    I live between the ticks of the second, ma reine. I would like to see him try.
    • Chthon later remarks that what's left of Gravemoss is now orbiting Jupiter.
• Uhtred gets a few too:
  • Standing his ground against the Disir. These are monsters that he's grown up on stories of, the things that come and snatch you away in the night and devour you, things that cannot be touched, let alone stopped, and he's plainly terrified of them. Yet he stands his ground.
  • Being the protégé of Sif herself, something noted on several occasions to be no small thing, and demonstrating the skills one would expect.
  • In chapter 59, displaying his skills as a Scarily Competent Tracker - while the trail itself is easy to follow, he figured out that the ice was too thick and not natural, in the middle of a raging blizzard, simply by tapping it a couple of times.
  • Taking on one of the Slendermen in a contest of raw power and winning.
  • After the temporary Plot-Relevant Age-Up, is powerful enough to wrestle with a supercharged werewolf and complain that the others are too busy chatting to notice.
  • In Chapter 75:
    • He is injured in the fight against Daken's partners, Extremis powered supersoldiers. Barely. The guy he fought is decapitated.
  • In Chapter 76:
    • Tries to finish off Gravemoss by cutting off his head. It doesn't work, but you have to give him credit for trying the simple solution.
    • Throws himself into an army of N'Garai, laughing and kicking ass all the way.
  • In Chapter 77, he continues laughing his way into the battle, shouting the demons to Bring It while holding his war axe in one hand and a N'Garai's torn out spine in the other.
• Wanda has quite a few. Building enough of a reputation (entirely separate from being Strange's apprentice) that even Sif and the Warriors Three have heard of and respect her. Most of this is reported, but...
  • Taking on Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange at once and winning. And, judging by how she's in her mid-forties in the present day, she did so while she was in her late twenties/early thirties. She also survived duelling Voldemort twice, while almost everyone else who tried ended up dead. When she faces the new and improved version, who'd effortlessly murdered two powerful Warlocks and a Warden, swatted another like a fly, and was about to murder Harry Dresden after effortlessly toying with him, he runs for his life. It should be noted that when she faces him again, she's weary from three magic battles in the space of less than half an hour, while Voldemort's fairly fresh; he still isn't willing to risk it.
  • Being trained by Doctor Strange as his heir apparent - and as is later shown, he is extremely discerning. He explicitly lays out to her that he trained her because she is the best, not the other way around.
  • Being estimated as, after the above, the second most powerful mortal practitioner on the planet. In a world that contains the Senior Council, this is pretty damn impressive.
    • It is later confirmed that she's actually stronger than he is, and the only person who's ahead of her is Merlin himself, who's the master of magic itself, 1500 years old in a 'verse where Stronger with Age is a solid supernatural rule, and even then, on her better days she's near to on par with him.
  • Hitting her magical prime at age 40, when most Dresden-verse wizards hit theirs around age 100.
  • Being a master of the Colony Drop, according to Fitzsimmons, and demonstrates it in Chaos Reigns. She's also used it on Nicodemus Archleone himself.
  • Being the daughter of Magneto - not only was badassery inevitable, inevitably having to deal with him is no small thing, either. For one thing, she is just about the only person he willingly backs down for.
• Her first onscreen appearance? Illuminated by the gigantic pillar of flame she'd unleashed on an army of the undead from the heavens.
  • She's Wisdom's ace card, and her entrance immediately turns the tide of battle - mainly from a tactical point of view, as she sets about banishing the intangible beings, taking advantage of the fact that Loki's locking them down, which frees up Loki to flex his mystical muscles and start showing what the God of Magic can really do.
• She easily keeps up with Thor when he's flying at supersonic velocities.
• She lays down the gauntlet to a crack squad of Ministry Aurors, telling them that if they want to get to Sirius Black - visiting his brother in hospital - they'll have to go through her, with total confidence. And this, mind you, is after fighting in a pitched battle. These guys are fresh as daisies. And by striding forward, without saying a word, she tells them to move or be moved. They move.
• Her blessing on Harry has bent probability and arguably reality around him so strongly that even Odin's picked up on it. Wanda is scary powerful.
• Finds time in chapter 76, in the midst of the Final Battle, to give Harry a maternal scolding and ruffle his hair.
• In chapter 78, punches Doctor Strange after learning what he is having Jean-Paul doing, despite the risks.
  • And when her father eyes her new boyfriend (who makes a sensible, if futile, attempt to hide behind her), apparently intent on giving him a shovel speech, she simply narrows her eyes and says, "Father, don't you dare." Magneto, who has just crumpled the Vibranium armoured and nigh invincible Dreadnought and made it look easy, acquiesces.
• Mostly an Off Screen Moment Of Awesome, but Sean Cassidy more than holds his own during the Battle of the M4.
• When Sean arrives at Hogwarts, he quickly establishes himself as a Reasonable Authority Figure and becomes a mentor to Harry.
• The fact that whatever Sean did on his Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the IRA cell that killed his wife with his Compelling Voice still gives Nick Fury nightmares is a rather dark moment of awesome. After all, Fury's not an easily shaken man...
  • This is perhaps part of the reason why Dumbledore, Loki, Pierce, Lucius, and even the Red Room all regard him with a certain degree of respect.
• Sean demonstrating that screaming really loudly is just the beginning of his Audiokinetic powers. He can also use them as a Compelling Voice, a Glass-Shattering Sound (capable of shattering bone, wand wood and apparently, liquefying granite) and to pull a Stealth Hi/Bye so effective that it startles Freki and Geri.
  • Putting up with a mopey Warren is probably an awesome moment in and of itself.
  • Managing to keep Ron and Hermione alive during the Pensive Incident.
  • In chapter 70 he shows exactly how dangerous he is by using his powers to dampen sound around him, setting a claymore mine, picking off the next few who come down the stairs, then using his scream to shatter the bones of the remaining HYDRA mooks, before executing them.
  • In chapter 76, teaming up with Sirius Black to take on all comers.
• Diana gets a fair few:
  • Calming Harry and Uhtred down with her empathy for long enough for Harry to clear the air between them. Without either noticing.
  • Outrunning the leader of the Disir in flight while carrying Uhtred and Harry. Bear in mind that even though she's got Super-Strength, she's about 11, and a small 11 at that.
  • In chapter 60, when aged up, destroying a robot created by Baron Zemo that was about to kill Harry... by ripping it in half with her bare hands. Even HYDRA's leadership are stunned into silence.
  • In Chapter 75: In the fight against Daken's partners, Extremis powered supersoldiers, her wrist is sprained. That's her only injury, having beaten two of the men she was fighting (hers and Carol's) to a pulp. One of them has his head pointing the wrong way. This from a tiny and otherwise adorable little girl.
  • In Chapter 76:
    • During a melee, Harry notices her beating a troll to death with its own arm.
    • Wields Mjolnir, becoming her aged up self again and giving us another taste of the future Wonder Woman.
  • In Chapter 77, she utterly destroys a Mabdhara by flying at mach speed, sword first. And remember, this is part of the same species as the one that took an orbital bombardment, being rammed at half the speed of sound by the Tumbler, hit with demolition charges from the same and finally fried by most of Chicago's electricity supply to put down.
• Harry Dresden, despite often being well out of his depth, gets a fair few moments to shine:
  • Saved Thomas and Martha Wayne in a confrontation on a graveyard that ended with the would-be killer/robber being struck by a ball of conjured force and lightning, while hungry and exhausted, and having been stabbed. He was barely 20.
  • According to Coulson, he once defeated three mountain trolls at once.
  • In chapter 44, unleashing the full wrath of his Death Curse on Gravemoss. It doesn't do any permanent physical damage (he got a shield up just in time), but it punts the bastard straight into the North Sea, over five hundred miles away. The metaphysical damage, though, was brutal enough that the necromancer becomes even more unhinged than he was before and begins to have nightmares about Dresden.
  • Though it's not dwelt on, as Wanda's apprentice, Harry is in line to one day become the Sorcerer Supreme. He's got plenty more awesome moments to come. Also, the fact that out of all the magic wielders out there, Strange thought that he would be the best candidate.
  • Being selected for Fury's Shadow Initiative in chapter 75.
  • When fighting Gravemoss in Chapter 76, he accidentally calls on Soulfire for the first time. Which manifests by turning his blasting rod into a lightsaber. Which he then uses to kick Gravemoss's ass, including cutting off his arm (which noticeably does not grow back). In between, he finds time to see off the undead demon hound version of Bellatrix Lestrange. Wanda's and Constantine's jaws, needless to say, are hanging loose.
  Harry: If so powerful you are, why leave?
• Hermione manages to gain Loki's admiration and respect at their first meeting through one simple suggestion: sic Tony on the Dursleys for what they did to Harry. Granted, part of his interest might have been detecting her latent chaos magic, but it's still impressive, as that's exactly what he does.
• At one point, while her chaos magic is still latent, she accidentally transforms a chair into a penguin, and then into an orca whale. Accidental, wandless transfiguration is fairly impressive. But turning a wooden chair into a penguin? By accident? That's very impressive indeed.
• Like Ron, while Hermione doesn't necessarily like getting involved in Harry's brand of insanity, she does insist on at least offering her help. Harry's going to get back-up, no matter what.
• Hermione and the Weasley Twins perform a complicated magical ritual perfectly on their first try, something which earns them respect from both Strange and Loki.
• Amiably ridiculous as they often are, there's a reason the Warriors Three are legends in Asgard:
  • Already being skilled and dangerous enough that Odin chose them, along with Thor, Loki, and Sif, to clear out Helheim.
  • Fandral's hilarious, yet effective, desperate attempts at Xanatos Speed Chess to give Sif and Loki some alone time.
  • Fandral and Betsy entering battle together to the strains of British folk dance.
  • Their instant response to anything that seems to upset Sif? Circle the wagons and abandon all silliness.
  • In Chapter 76, they carve through several dozen HYDRA troops, many of them armed with Deity Class weaponry, and Fandral merely remarks afterwards that he thought that mortals used to be tougher than this.
  • In Chapter 77, Fandral is confident enough about the battle that he has no qualm in literally pushing Loki and Sif together, finally solving their Unresolved Sexual Tension.
  • Underlining his status as a Master Swordsman, he is described as the finest swordsman in the Nine Realms (equalled only by Sif), and in the sequel is now Harry's tutor.
• Ron gets a moment or two:
  • Thor and Magneto both single out his gift for strategic thinking, and they aren't the only ones.
  • After the fight at the mountain, he deduces that it woke Harry's (so far mostly dormant) Asgardian side, thus giving him an advanced Healing Factor. While this wouldn't be a surprising announcement coming from, say, Loki or Thor, the fact that it comes from a teenage wizard with practically no knowledge of this area is pretty impressive.
  • Despite being Overshadowed by Awesome, it's repeatedly implied that he's on MI13 and SHIELD's list of people to headhunt after he leaves Hogwarts, in partly because of his knack for surviving the sort of drastically over-scale insanity associated with Harry, which hints at some very real talent.
  • Even though he doesn't necessarily want to get involved with Harry-related insanity, he wants to be there to at least offer his friend the option of backing him up, even when Harry arguably doesn't need it/has far more qualified back-up.
• In between moping, Warren's a genuine badass.
  • His first major appearance is made via a Dynamic Entry in which pounces on a gigantic undead dragon, disabling and beheading it in moments.
  • Demonstrating how sharp his wings are by chopping down ten trees in a single pass.
  • Outrunning Harry's tuned up Firebolt, which tops out at four hundred and fifty miles per hour, breaking the sound barrier.
  • Calling out Snape and showing such fine control of his Razor Wings that in a fairly crowded room, he can have the tips at Snape's throat the moment he looks like he's going for his wand without hurting anyone else.
  • Taking on the HYDRA paratroopers attacking Hogwarts. They're trained commandos equipped with pirated Falcon suits and Destroyer based weaponry. He's in pyjama bottoms and nothing else. And there's about ten to twenty of them. A Mook Horror Show ensues, Dwindling Party and lack of Gory Discretion Shot included.
  • Going full Angel of Death in chapter 76, easily outflying a HYDRA Quinjet in a low level dogfight amongst the streets of Central London, and generally performing well enough that he actually impresses Namor.
• Phil Coulson, naturally, gets a few.
  • Being one of the very few people Nick Fury trusts is Awesome in and of itself. He's also a former Army Ranger.
  • Persuaded first Fury, then the Director of the time, Jim Woo, to allow the Kents to keep Clark, since SHIELD moved in after the meteor shower. For added awesome, it turns out that Alison was counting on him both reacting that way and successfully persuading them.
  • On a grimmer note, he manipulated Dresden into helping search for the veidrdraugar, when it was very obvious that Dresden thought (not incorrectly) that he was out of his depth. Cue a My God, What Have I Done? moment when it looked like Dresden had been killed.
  • The interrogation of Narcissa. All of it. He played her like a stradivarius.
  • An Offscreen Moment of Awesome: According to Harry Dresden, he once took down three muggers with a paper clip. Badass Normal indeed.
• Dumbledore sometimes reminds people why he's considered one of the greatest wizards in the world.
  • As a young man in his teens, standing up to the Phoenix/Destruction of the Endless, a Cosmic Entity who gave the Darkhold an Oh, Crap! at a whisper of Her power, and asking Her not to kill the girl who summoned her.
  • Working as The Spymaster against Grindelwald, allying with Steve, the Howling Commandos, and SSR during World War Two. He wasn't just an intelligence broker, either; he fought alongside the Commandos at least a few times as well.
  • Then again, during the war against Voldemort, serving as a counter against the Dark Lord, a serious Adaptational Badass. Wanda states that they were a match for each other, which is no small feat given that almost everyone, other than her and Strange, who tried duelling him ended up dead.
    • Even once Voldemort comes back to life, he's actively wary of coming near the Hogwarts grounds, heavily implying that as powerful and dangerous (not to mention arrogant) as he is, he still doesn't want to mess with Dumbledore.
  • Amongst the people he taught, Dumbledore played The Mentor to Charles Xavier, the Scarlet Witch, and Nick Fury. Think about that for a second. Indeed, even during Fury's Freak Out after the attack on MI6, he still notably defers to Dumbledore's opinion and expertise.
  • Although it's a Noodle Incident, it's implied that Dumbledore knew Black Widow on a first-name basis during the bad old days. Given what she was up to, this has to count as an Offscreen Moment of Awesome for both of them.
  • In canon, Dumbledore had an uneasy relationship with Fudge and the Ministry. Here, it's stated more than once that, when matters get serious, he can and will make Fudge do what he wants. Whether the Minister himself wants to, or not.
  • It's generally implied throughout the story that Dumbledore's magical skills and expertise are on the same level as those of the Senior Council. It should be noted that the youngest of said Council has roughly three times the amount of experience he does.
• ( When HYDRA attacks Hogwarts, four of their wizards, trained and handpicked specifically to bring him down, work together to take him. He notes their casting styles and from there deduces their countries of origin, considers that outside of Hogwarts they might have "caused him some slight bother," takes out all four with about two absent-minded spells, and vaporizes their wands.
  • Chapter 71 has him stare down the Phoenix, again, and tell Her to cut the obfuscation. Considering what he's seen Her do (and what She's really capable of), this takes serious balls.
  • Leading at least some of the Hogwarts staff in the Battle of London to protect innocent Muggles.

Chaos Reigns

• Dresden spends most of chapter 2 of Chaos Reigns alternately dumbfounded and in awe of Wanda's power and skill. Incidents include taking out two N'Garai and immobilising a whole bunch of Mindless Ones with about three fairly simple spells, then pulling a Colony Drop on the Mabdhara. She, literally, barely breaks a sweat.
• He gets a moment or three of his own, too at the climax of Chaos Reigns: He kills a Mindless One by slamming his staff into its eye slit, backfiring its energy blast, One Hit Kills about a dozen N'Garai, quite literally vaporizing several of them, and finishes off the mortally wounded Mabdhara by channeling the electricity from a broken power cable through his body and staff into the water surrounding said demon.

Ghosts of the Past

• Chapter 10 of Ghosts of the Past sees Thor carving his way through Red Room mooks without even slowing down. And then there's his "fight" with Blob!Dudley; the latter's attacks don't do squat against him, and Thor ultimately smashes him into a mountain without even a full effort.
• Thor also holds his own against the Juggernaut in hand-to-hand combat, before going into his Berserker Rage and taking him down.
• After Odin tells him that he may not be returning from a meeting of the Council Elite, Thor snaps into action and puts together in moments a plan to defend Asgard and his son, one that even impresses Loki.
• Thor noticing the Elder Wyrm's subtle gravity enchantment and, instead of trying to counter it, using it to his advantage by turning it against his foe.
• As a relatively young god, Thor took on Jormungand (the Father of Dragons, one of Surtur's Great Captains, and thus far bigger, nastier, and more powerful than the Elder Wyrm), and defeated him by throwing him into a neutron star. This is especially impressive, considering that Jormungand is later shown carving through the Shi'ar Empire with total impunity.
  • He also fought and defeated Dracula in single combat, and states in Ghosts that he would be willing and able to do so again, as many times as necessary.
• He gets into two psychic battles with Voldemort in chapter 2 of Ghosts of the Past. The first he gets an early advantage in (managing to give Voldemort a Psychic Nosebleed), before Voldemort's threats to his friends scare him off. The second, he doesn't have to hold back and sends Voldemort packing with raw power.
  • Afterwards, he conjures a Phoenix to tear the Dark Mark apart.
  • And earlier, he unconsciously taps into the Phoenix to strengthen his telekinetic shield sufficiently to shrug off a blow from Thor, who Voldemort had psychically nudged sufficiently that he did not recognise friend from foe.
• Giving Carol's dad a truly epic "The Reason You Suck" Speech, when he tries to get Harry to "control" her.
• In Chapter 7 of Ghosts, Harry encounters Dudley's former gang, who used to bully him, picking on another kid. He then proceeds to kick their arses, without even needing to use any of his powers. Then he uses a Jedi Mind Trick on them to make them all reconsider their lives.
• His fight with Dudley, now the Blob, having been forced into a suit that contains his Psychic Powers. First, he hits him with a fire-blast powerful enough to really, genuinely hurt a character known for his durability (not that it does anything more than really piss him off, mind you). Then, once he unwisely offers mercy to his downed opponent and gets his arm crushed for his efforts, as well as undergoing some Metronomic Man Mashing, he responds by internalising his telekinesis, fixing his broken bones, and giving himself telekinetic super strength, which he then uses in a Heroic Second Wind to beat Dudley to a whimpering pulp.
  • And after, he promptly runs rings around the Red Room by creating a bank of steam by super-heating snow, takes down an ersatz Iron Man in about two seconds flat, steals its machete and uses it to cut open his suit and allow him to use his powers properly again, before finding Carol and company with a subtle tip-off from Gambit and some well applied telepathy.
• Pulling a Xanatos Gambit in his Battle in the Center of the Mind against Rachel Grey/Maddie Pryor: Winning is a deeply unlikely prospect, but if he does win, fine. But regardless, he knows that such a powerful conflict will create waves in the astral plane, allowing his friends and family to locate him.
  • The fact that he pretty much holds his own against a much more highly skilled, experienced, and powerful telepath is quite impressive as well. The following chapter details all the ways he manages to stay ahead of her attacks, relying on his creativity to counter her greater skill and power.
• He spits on Essex to express what he thinks of him. Childish? Yes. Cathartic? Yes.
  • Before that, Essex tortured him for two days hoping to weaken the boy enough to brainwash him. He ends up so irritated for failing to do this he has to call on Maddie.
• While as the Red Son, he helps take control of half a continent, and goes toe-to-toe with Magneto, putting up an excellent fight.
• In Chapter 15 of Ghosts of the Past, Harry gets another one, though it doubles as Nightmare Fuel in that he says a very familiar line that sends shivers down the spines of people both in and out of universe:
  I AM LIFE
  I AM FIRE
  NOW AND FOREVER
  I
  AM
  PHOENIX!
• As the Dark Phoenix, he proceeds to shrug off hits by the clone of a fully grown high-blood Kryptonian and four nuclear missiles in quick succession, before ripping through the Red Army like a hot knife through an overused cliche.
• Harry shutting down Snape with this exchange (after noting that most people think he's more like his mother these days, which Snape disagreed with):
  "Or perhaps you didn't know [Lily] as well as you thought you did." *pause* "In fact… I think that I'm living proof that you didn't."
• He uses a Badass Fingersnap to put everyone in Gryffindor Tower to sleep and ensure that they all stay asleep. And admits that the finger-snap was just for show. While it's not anywhere near his most awesome display of psychic power, it's still pretty impressive.
• By the next chapter, his telekinesis has progressed to the point where he can lift the Durmstrang ship, all six thousand tons of it, fifty feet out of the lake without being able to see it (Dumbledore creates a window so that everyone else in the room can see what's happening), and make it sail in a figure of eight. While inspecting his fingernails.
• When Carol is kidnapped, he first manages to use his powers through her and crushes about half of the Grey Court vampires that have captured her and Stevie, and then he reaches out with an astral projection powerful enough to fight off the last vampire hand-to-hand and then turn it into a vegetable.
  • After that, he shows that he's grown from the impulsive boy he used to be, by taking the time to grab his equipment and figure out how to get to her and what to do then, keeping Dracula's counter-measures in mind rather than just rushing over and pulling off an Indy Ploy.
• Telling a group of vampires that while they outmatch him and Diana physically, they didn't stand a chance once he pinned down where they were and focused. He then psychically dices them into pieces - something done to get Dracula's attention, and take it off of Carol.
• After vampire!Dudley nearly kills Uhtred, Harry goes into a Tranquil Fury. He rips out Dudley's tongue to shut him up, uses his own powers to neutralize Dudley's, then cuts him to pieces with his sword.
• For Round 2, he creates a makeshift suit of armour out of spare pieces of some destroyed Iron Man suits. When Sirius transfigures it into one uniformed piece, Harry reinforces it with his own magic. He then tracks down where Dracula and his minions have captured Carol, obliterates one of the Master Vampires, and throws down the gauntlet to the Vampire Monarch with a catchphrase borrowed from his father.
  "Dracula, King of Corpses, Lord of Leeches. I, Harry Thorson, Prince of Asgard, would have words. Words, vampire, with thee."
• Holding his own against Dracula and getting a few hits in, such as creating a connection for Xavier to remotely attack him via Cerebro. And even when Dracula gets the upper hand and appears set to kill him, Harry merely tells him to get it over with, since nothing could be more painful than having to listen to Dracula talk.
• In the rematch, Harry summons the Phoenix into himself, destroys all of Dracula's defences like they were tissue paper and leaves Dracula paralysed in fear - only Harry's actually faking it, with a power-boost from Maddie and Jean to make it look real, and still he fights well enough that Dracula doesn't even realize it's not the genuine article until Harry runs out of power, long enough for Dracula to be distracted until the Avengers come knocking (him out). And then gives Carol (who is on the verge of death) enough blood to keep her alive until she can be taken to a hospital.
  • Crossing over with Heartwarming, Unfinished Business also reveals the amount - 4 pints. An adult has about 10 pints of blood in their body. Even with no other blood loss, that would be about the point where blood loss causes organ failure. However, Harry had already donated about half a pint to cure Peter, and having been skewered through the shoulder by Dracula, according to Gwen the police found him already suffering from significant blood loss. Given that he'd been moved by Strange, he'd likely left some behind, and there's at least one large artery in the shoulder. All told, he probably gave up most of the blood left in his body to save her - something which probably should have killed him.
• Another combined heartwarming and awesome moment is Harry casually telling Jean-Paul that if he thought the latter were cheating on Uhtred, he would break his leg and interrogate him, and that there would be "trouble" were he to be doing so without guilt. Given that Harry later states that he would rather go toe-to-toe with Dracula again rather than anger Jean-Paul, it makes clear the levels of his Big Brother Instinct for Uhtred.
• When his sword is reforged, Harry names it Curtana, representing both justice and mercy, and an inscription blazes to life on the blade, portending great things to come:
  For justice I am taken up. In mercy I am cast away. I am Curtana. Wield me wisely.
• In Chapter 41 when Harry has a peek at the Multiverse one version of Harry senses their (Harry & Nathan) presence and takes the time to cheekily wink at them before they leave, he was the only other version of Harry beside Nathan and the Dark Phoenix to do this.
• During the First Task, in chapter 42 of Ghosts, we see Harry through outside eyes (Cedric Diggory's) for the first time in a while, demonstrating how extraordinary he looks (and is) to most people.
  • The other three Champions are captured by a group of wights guarding the caverns under the Hogwarts' lake, taken to a crypt far below, slowly being enchanted and twisted to become like them. Cue Harry, who bursts into the crypt, interrupts the wight's creepy enchanting chant, before casually making a Tolkien reference or two, then wreathed in burning power and with his Voice of the Legion, demands the wights release the other champions to him or be destroyed. They refuse. When the wights attack him, he unleashes a phoenix construct of pure fire upon them, with a colossal flash and roar, taking on the entire army of a hundred or more wights, each of which can shrug off two powerful curses from two powerful practitioners without taking more than a mild set of scratches and dents to their armour, at once, by himself.
  • Then it's revealed that all this bombast is an illusion, cover for his sneaking up on the magically-compelled Champions, easily disarming and disabling all three of them (who are armed and armoured like the wights, and enhanced to the point where Cedric estimates he could crumble granite in his bare hands) when they're magically compelled to attack, and does so with his bare hands, in the space of a matter of seconds. And to sneak up on them in the first place he'd killed half a dozen superhumanly strong, heavily armoured, and magic resistant wights in the process, all in complete and utter silence.
  • Then he uses his telepathy to free the others from the wights' control in a matter of instants, waits until he has the wights' attention, offers them mercy once more, and when they refuse, tells them they were wrong to refuse his mercy and right to fear life and the living, before obliterating them all - a hundred or more creatures - in one shot.
  • After that, he then reveals that he was being dramatic and making such a spectacle of destroying the wights so that, hopefully, whatever commands them would focus on him.
  • In relation to the deliberate drawing of his enemies' attention, Harry also points out that his magic is in no way weaker than his psychic abilities, and in the next breath outright states they don't know how powerful he is, which is played a simple statement of fact.
  • This quote about describing his newly dubbed Tactile Telekinesis.
    "Which means that while I'm not going to be winning any arm-wrestling contests with the Hulk, I'd still have my arm afterwards if I tried."
• Upon seeing the Elder Wyrm, Harry whips up a plan in moments, engages it in Casual Danger Dialogue, and infuriates it before getting everyone out safely, in a scene straight out the Doctor's playbook.
  • Thanks to a special suit of armour designed for him by Tony and Jane, he's able to go into orbit in an attempt to pull Death from Above on the dragon by dropping on its head (specifically, through its eye and out the other side) sword first, at a speed comparable to a space shuttle in full flight (roughly 17,500 mph), which only fails because it turns it head at the last second (all of this, while "Thunderstruck" is being blasted by the Valiant's loudspeakers). Following that, he chases it underground, riding it all the way into the mantle, then fighting it back onto the surface and into the sky, before finally bringing it down on the volcano it had created. He then casually shoots down the We Can Rule Together speech it delivers on behalf of Surtur, before telling it to pass along a message to its master for him, and then finishing it off with a mystical and psychic blast that puts a hole through its head. Oh, and that message?
    "You're next."
• He sasses Surtur across time in spite of the Fire Giant's psychic might bearing on him, telling him he's nothing but a failure who's afraid that the Phoenix picking Harry as Her new host not just could, but will mean Surtur's destruction.
• In the Mirror Image arc, from chapter 55 to chapter 58, Harry gets to show off as the relatively senior member of the cast, playing Big Brother Mentor to Clark, and demonstrating how his power - and much more importantly, his skill, especially with his magic (since Strange has put his psychic abilities on touch-based use only) - has grown.
  • He immediately figures out that something isn't right about Clark, zeroing on his cold, pointing out (accurately) he shouldn't have one, and correctly identifying it as the reason he was sent to Smallville by Strange.
  • Briefly restraining a fitting Clark (who's being magically attacked and drained), in mid-air, while getting a read on what's happening, surviving being thrown out through the Kent farmhouse, over several fields, and through part of the nearby woods, then promptly returning without a scratch on him. He then immediately shuts down the thaumaturgy-based attack with nothing more than a board marker, puts Clark to sleep, and jury-rigs a ball of sunlight to heal him, before casually fixing the damage to the house with a wave of his hand.
  • Successfully deduces the method of the attacks (designed to drain Clark of power), their likely motive, puts together what turns out to be a completely accurate profile of the likely perpetrator, gives Clark a big-brotherly pep talk about the supernatural world in general and his fears about exploring his Kryptonian ancestry (which Harry empathises with, based on his own experiences), and even finds the time to provide Clark with a plausible excuse to give Chloe for the investigation (as they need her local knowledge of Smallville based weirdness) - though it turns out to be unnecessary, as she already knows, though she assumed Clark was a meteor mutant.
  • He then takes the deductions further with Clark, Chloe and Lex, before effectively disguising himself with transfiguration ^note  Though he doesn't transfigure his eyes because he doesn't want to risk blindness, which along with his choice of the Evans/Grey family's signature shade of red hair, means that even with changes to his features, Coulson quickly figures out who he is. taking Clark to the local equivalent of Mac's to scout out more information, and teaching him some espionage tradecraft in the process, before smoothly bluffing the barman into talking by implying that he's a White Council Warden (he's more than got the raw power to be one, which even a minor Wandless talent like the barman could sense on skin to skin contact) investigating black magic and that he should therefore cooperate or face the Council's wrath.
  • In The Dresden Files, ghouls are relatively hard for Dresden, a powerful and experienced wizard, to put down in close combat until at least the ninth book, both because of his relative lack of control with his most powerful magic and because they're all ridiculously tough and have a powerful Healing Factor to boot. Harry kills thirteen of them with two spells in as many seconds, by freezing them (by drawing off all their heat) so fast that Clark doesn't even realise what's happened until he sees them shimmering with frost, frozen in place, before smashing them with a lash made up of the remaining energy - the kind of trick that Dresden (notably gifted at fire magic) didn't master until his thirties.
  • The fragments end up merging into six semi Humanoid Abominations, each made up of two ghouls - or, in the case of the largest, three. They barely get annoyed by bullets from Coulson's handgun, or by the flamethrowers on Lola, they can tear apart cars like tinfoil, and Coulson is very clear a) in his belief that he won't survive fighting them for more than ten seconds, b) that he wouldn't want to face even one of them without a heavily armed, highly experienced, and extremely well-briefed SHIELD tactical assault team. Harry kills three in five seconds: one is decapitated by his thrown sword, which he summons back to him while moving, catching it in his left hand so as maintain momentum while he shoulder charges a monster at least twice the size of an adult human into an SUV that crumples around it, bisecting it with a single strike as he spins away, before vaporising the third with a blast of raw fire. All this, while fighting with one metaphorical hand - arguably, his good hand (his Psychic Powers) - tied behind his back. No wonder Coulson is momentarily stunned by the sight, comparing it to a force of nature.
    • Of the remaining three, one gets bisected with a laser-like blast of flame from at least a hundred yards away (something shown to require insane degrees of precision), while the second last (and largest) merged ghoul decides to charge head-on, 'fast enough to break most speed limits', crushing a car in its way 'like paper'. Is Harry fazed? Nope. He switches his sword to his left-hand, and uses what he learned from Magneto to casually jury-rig a railgun. With a coin. It vaporises the super-ghoul... and knocks Harry on his backside, while setting off every car alarm in half a mile. The last one only escapes by running, while Harry is busy, having subdued Clark with its master's help.
  • Belle Reve Sanitarium is an Eldritch Location thanks to all the Black Magic and experiments on magically talented people that have gone on in there, complete with disappearing doors and shrinking corridors. Lex and Chloe are rightfully freaked out. Harry? Not so much. He rips their way out of the collapsing corridor with minimal effort, beats up the half-dozen guards that they run into in a couple of seconds, and casually states that a) Belle Reve should behave now (having essentially beaten it up in a dominance battle), and b) he was breaking into more impressive and dangerous places when he was 11 - Hogwarts' basement for starters.
  • While Clark is mostly the one who gets to shine in chapter 58 (sometimes literally), he's definitely no slouch, using a far wider array of magic than usual even after regaining access to his Psychic Powers:
    • Effortlessly sweeps in and rescues Clark from Reynolds, demonstrating films!Magneto-style magnetism manipulation to tear his way into the room and swat the other man, a powerful dark wizard, aside like he isn't even there.
    • He hits escape velocity (the speed required to break loose of Earth's gravity), being noted as starting at speeds that would shame a space shuttle, which hit Mach 25. Not only does he do that, he dismantles Belle Reve with 'a thought' as he shoots upwards, carrying Clark, and manages to simultaneously maintain a super-charged shield charm, analyse Reynolds' notes and plans, and come up with a plan for how to heal Clark. Oh, and his implied acceleration speed is such that he gets within his roughly three thousand mile range of Asteroid M within minutes - which, since the ISS orbits the Earth every 90 minutes at 17,130 mph (just under Mach 23) implies he's moving up to ten times that fast.
    • That plan? Step 1: Telepathically contact Magneto from thousands of miles away - who, it has to be said, is genuinely stunned by its audacity (while Alison is later deeply impressed by its cleverness) - and enlist his help. Step 2: Get Magneto to reflect solar radiation from around his side of the planet to where Harry and Clark are. Step 3: Create an array of lenses made of magic and telekinesis varying in size from football pitch to classroom globe, with magic that's half made up on the spot and a lot of guesswork. At the same time, create a Blood Magic connection to Clark, locking their arms together, and get between him and the lenses' focusing point. Step 4: channel all that energy through him, like a giant fuse-box, taking the full brunt of it while modulating the levels to fit what Clark can manage, in the full knowledge that this could burn off his left arm. Step 5: start the magic with the words "Fiat Lux." As in, the Latin for "let there be light."
    • The resultant burst of light is compared to an exploding star, and an aurora is caused over Kansas as a mere side-effect. Clark? He gets supercharged, with the Kryptonite build-up in his body burnt out for good measure. Harry? He gets away with second degree burns that he barely even notices. He also effortlessly installs filters on Clark's malfunctioning super-senses to prevent the Sensory Overload that was about to overwhelm him.
    • Clark goes charging in to try and tackle Reynolds into the ground at re-entry speeds. Harry? He effortlessly dodges Reynolds' attempts at a counter-attack when he arrives shortly afterwards, removes the top forty feet of Reynolds' tower (transfigured from the remnants of Belle Reve), then promptly ignores him in favor of snarking at Clark and Reynolds, and getting the former dressed in something more suitable.
    • Then it turns out that he's not simply wasting time, because he "can banter and plot at the same time." Specifically, he's exploiting his understanding of both Reynolds' psychology and that of the demon he assimilated (and which is now semi-dominant), using their caution to keep it in place - he nearly fried Reynolds twice, and the demon isn't quite sure why they're so confident, standing around and chatting. In the meantime, more and more of Smallville is evacuated, meaning a steady decrease in risk to civilians and more time for support from SHIELD to arrive.
    • In the following tag-team fight (which is a moment for both Harry and Clark), he's also fast enough in close quarters to keep up with Clark (who's moving at comfortably multi-Mach speeds) and Reynolds (who's not quite as fast, but in the same general area), described as 'dancing with effortless grace among the lightning', and neatly bisects Reynolds with a single blow when Clark throws Reynolds towards him.
    • When Reynolds pulls an I Surrender, Suckers on Clark, fast enough that Clark (who was aware of the risk) couldn't even react, Harry stops him mid-stab, before skewering him on his Flaming Sword.
    • His Rousing Speech to Clark following this, when Clark is somewhat downhearted at how his offer of mercy was thrown in his face, again, essentially saying that while a little pragmatism is good (as is "a little constructive paranoia"), cynicism isn't - it might keep you alive, but that's not the same as living. In short, Rousseau Was Right and Harry knows (as someone who's used it himself - though he's afraid he isn't capable of it any more) Clark's Power of Trust is arguably his most remarkable gift.
    • He finds and balances a damaged 747 passenger plane from an unspecified number of miles away in moments, while carrying on a conversation with Clark about who's going to take the plane rescue, and who's going to deal with Reynolds, now merged into the Void, a demon-human gestalt that's Weak, but Skilled compared to what it was before (and easily a Person of Mass Destruction, as it's about to destroy Smallville with multiple tornadoes).
    • When he attacks the Void, he doesn't go in head-on. Instead, being a Combat Pragmatist who was Taught by Experience, he sneaks up on it with his Invisibility Cloak, then skewers it through the groin from below with his Flaming Sword. When the Void questions how he even expects to survive in a one on one fight, Harry reveals the kind of things he's been holding back to protect Clark's innocence. Like a Blood Magic spell that rips blood straight from the Void's veins, a blow that cuts through the tentacle based counter-attack, binds it with the Crimson Bands of Cytorrak, and then condenses a thunderstorm into something the size of a golf ball that he shoves down the Void's throat. While delivering a savage Badass Boast. He might be on his best behaviour for Clark, but it's best to remember that Good Is Not Soft.
    • When Clark returns from his plane rescue, Harry reveals that not only has he been involved in a brutal close-quarters fight with the Void, he also a) briefly trapped it inside his mind when it tried a psychic attack on him, something said with such a Slasher Smile that Clark actually briefly pities the Void, b) he uses a time magic trick to put the Void's legs out of sync with its body - and by implication, has done this at least twice.
    • Even significantly drained, he demonstrates that he's perfectly capable of casually replicating the turn-off-gravity he used on the Elder Wyrm, to force the Void off the ground.
    • In the final fight, he mostly restricts himself to forcing the Void higher and higher per Clark's plan, holding back its shadowy tendrils, and nudging it just so for Clark to beat the crap out of. Then it tries to choke Clark by transfiguring the carbon dioxide in his mouth, throat, and lungs into carbonia glass and dry ice (the solid forms of carbon dioxide) and wallops him with a piece of Kryptonite. Cue a telepathic attack so vicious that the telekinetic component is a mere punchline: he channels all his most horrific and painful experiences, including his possession by Chthon, his attack by Surtur, and the horrors he experienced as the Red Son, all unvarnished and without the dulling effects of his protection and the passage of time, leaving an aspect of 'pure Cosmic Horror', before forcing the Void's True Sight open and leaving it stuck that way. Finally, he drop-kicks the still screaming limbless result into orbit. Oh, and he does this in the space of a few seconds.
    • After that he manages to help heal Clark by repeating his sunlight trick, on a far smaller scale, and Clark marvels at his stamina, when after the very last portion of the fight, Clark is the one who's exhausted, while Harry's tired, but still functional (though implied to be on the verge of outright exhaustion in his own case).
• When undergoing some Mind Rape from an illusion of himself conjured by an ancient fortress, Harry gives it a "The Reason You Suck" Speech and reveals that he's been letting it talk so he can figure out how it works and locate his friends. Once he's done that, he banishes it easily with what Sirius describes as "the mother of all Patronuses."
• Going toe-to-toe with the Fortress-possessed Hermione, driving it out of hiding and keeping it on the back foot, while remaining calm and collected throughout.
  • This, bear in mind, is a fully fledged Reality Warper, with the powers of a Chaos Witch and a teenage Omega Class space-manipulating mutant, both being pushed beyond their limits by a monster already capable of killing gods. Harry manages to hold his own, and reveals that he's still holding back from more lethal techniques to preserve Hermione's body.
  • He also manages to separate Hermione's spirit from her body with the Ancient One's palm strike technique and safely stores her consciousness in his own mind. More to the point, he was trying to detach the Fortress spirit and intended to drag it into his mind, fully confident that either he'd win the Battle in the Center of the Mind or, in the worst case scenario, it would encounter his very territorial Phoenix fragment. This is an ancient horror that has spent millennia eating the souls of everything from wizards to gods, and he reckons he can beat it in a psychic cage-match - and it's indicated that he's not wrong, either.
  • He carries on a psychic conversation with Hermione for much of the early fight, who assumes that he's got a breather and can take the time to focus on her. He reveals that no, actually he's just sparing part of his focus to talk to her while carrying on the fight, and organises his access to her mind sufficiently that he can look up her exhaustive magical knowledge without straying somewhere private (though he notes that it helps that Hermione's mind is so scarily well organised that it has its own filing system). A long way from the kid who, barely five months before, couldn't do a psychic deep delve without accidentally forming a permanent psychic link.
• After Bucky captures him, Loki terrifies Sabretooth into submission. SHIELD's best interrogators couldn't break him, but Loki managed it in a couple minutes. With a few words and an illusion or two. There is a reason that Loki is regarded as even more dangerous than his big brother by everyone in the know.
• After the Red Son incident, he goes onto a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the Red Room, methodically murdering his way through their ranks and only leaving alive the ones that Dream has already subjected to a Fate Worse than Death.
  • And when he discovers that some of them have fled into India, he meets with the Indian Prime Minister, encourages him to reap the benefits of the Red Room's technological and scientific knowledge, sets up an Indian branch/complement of the Avengers, gets him to agree to stand back afterwards and let Loki and the others have free rein with the Red Room agents, and throws in both a carrot and a stick: Thor controls the weather (and India is very agricultural), and implies that he knows exactly how Karima Shapandar ended up in the Red Room's hands in the first place. And he does all of this over a cup of tea, remaining incredibly polite throughout. If that doesn't epitomise Cultured Badass, what does?
• Loki also spends most of the rest of Book II hunting down Surtur's servants, from Great Captains on down, without getting caught.
• In Forever Red, Steve gets a few moments:
  • Upon entering the Nevernever, where reality is warping all over the place (way more than usual there), he puts together a highly effective battle plan in moments.
  • Staring down an angry Thor. Thor blinks first.
  • In an Offscreen Moment of Awesome, he and Thor literally kick down the doors of the Kremlin and order Harry and Carol back, the Red Room dismantled, and Essex's head on a plate. President Volodya is plainly terrified and entirely willing to comply.
• Later, on a more mundane level, Steve accepting his status as Carol's 'Dad' in chapter 60, stepping up to the plate and actually being the dad she needs rather than just playing the part.
• Fury not even blinking when staring down an angry Thor, and the rest of the Avengers too. He later does the same thing, including a temperamental and recently ex-Dark Phoenix Harry, over Maddie, just to test their commitment to their belief that she can be salvaged.
• In Ghosts of the Past, Tony goes up against a group of Red Room soldiers wearing knockoffs of his armour, and teaches them why he's the Iron Man, with Thor taking note of his skill.
  • Later on in Ghosts, when Carol's in a suit, she notes how hard they are to fly and that she's now got a new respect for Tony.
• Along with Jane and presumably Bruce, coming up with a kind of Iron Man suit for Harry, and hiding it and Curtana in a pocket dimension, both of which are activated through his psychic inhibitor bracelets - and doing so well enough that no one detects that it's anything other than 'just' a set of inhibitors.
• Tony hacking the Valiant and using its speakers to blast "Thunderstruck". Like many things Tony does, it's simultaneously awesome, funny, and just a little bit over the top (though, in this case, very thematically appropriate).
  • Later tops this by hacking the SHIELD helicarrier and giving it strobe lights. From Pepper's cell phone, no less.
• An Offscreen Moment of Awesome, but he managed to restrain Thor while the latter was in the midst of his Warrior's Madness. And this, bear in mind, is just after the latter beat the crap out of the Juggernaut with his bare hands.
  • Making this even more awesome is the fact that, last time he snapped into the Warrior's Madness, it took Odin himself to bind him, when even the best and strongest of the Royal Guard were unable to. The Strongest One There Is, indeed.
• And chapter 33, four wonderful words...
  HULK SMASH PUNY VAMPIRE!
• When the Council Elite gathers to discuss the possible threat Harry presents following his stint as Dark Phoenix, Zeus takes the time to bring up the encounter with Hera in the previous book (which she has since twisted to sound like she's the victim). Odin very calmly takes the time to explain just how she brought what happened on herself, in a way that Zeus cannot refute (and makes him look like an adulterous idiot), which just leaves him more furious.
  • He also makes it very clear that if the Skyfathers want to harm his grandson, they will have to go through him. All of them. It's notable that, despite the fact that he's severely outnumbered, none of the others (save the hot-blooded Zeus) like the idea at all.
  • The fact that he's entirely willing to take on the entire Council speaks volumes about both his awesomeness and his dedication to his grandson.
• Both Harrys independently note that the main reason Voldemort hasn't tried to ascend to Greater Godhood is that, were he to do so, he would be making himself a fair target for Odin. Who wouldn't so much step in his plans as step on him. Like a bug.
• Natasha is more background, but gets a few:
  • Defeating the second Black Widow, Yelena Belova (who's younger, larger, and stronger, and could have killed Carol in single combat) in hand-to-hand combat, delivering an equally brutal physical beatdown and "Reason You Suck" Speech, which ends in her taking off a thumb in a knife-fight.
  • For their rematch, is utterly cool and calm throughout, even drinking a beer, and merely filing away Belova's attempt to provoke her by molesting Harry as something to be addressed at the appropriate moment, before informing Belova and the Winter Guard that "this is what we call a trap." Their second fight isn't even shown—it was enough of a Curb-Stomp Battle that it, apparently, wasn't worth it. It's also implied that its brutality and comprehensive nature had a lot to do with Belova's provocation, which Natasha took personally.
  • When Peter Wisdom starts demanding to know more about Harry than she believes that he needed to following Forever Red, Natasha essentially told the most influential man in Britain, a powerful wizard and mutant who went toe to toe with the Winter Soldier and survived, who makes even Thor uneasy, to shove off. To his face.
• Wisdom himself is no slouch.
  • In Chapter 2 of Ghosts of the Past, he gives Amos Diggory and the Ministry as a whole a scathing "The Reason You Suck" Speech for letting so many Death Eaters walk away at the end of the war, which has contributed to the current crisis.
  • There's also the way he stood up for Winky the House-Elf when she was suspected of being the one who cast the Dark Mark at the Quddich World Cup:
  Amos Diggory: She was found—
  Wisdom: She could have picked it up anywhere, you fucking moron.
  Diggory: Excuse me—
  Wisdom: No, you are not bloody excused. You were the one who was suggesting that it was more likely that a clearly terrified House Elf cast the Dark Mark instead of simply being unlucky enough to find the damn thing after the perpetrator got scared when the whole bloody flying circus dropped in and left it behind while running for the hills! There have been Death Eaters running around all over the place tonight!
  • In Chapter 20, it's tacitly confirmed that he's the most powerful person in Britain, and feels comfortable a) dismissing Thor without even looking up from his paperwork, b) telling him, to his face, that he's only going along with Thor's plan because he's convinced that it's the best plan for Britain, and if the only course of action was to kill Harry, he'd do that without batting an eye. That takes stones.
  • Giving Karkaroff a total Oh, Crap! moment, when the latter recognizes him.
  • And this is on top of his effortlessly shooting down all of Fudge and co.'s condescending dismissal of MI13's ability to protect Hogwarts. How does he do that? He has a Helicarrier, the HMS Valiant, decloak in the air above the castle... and reveals it had been there for the past 24 hours.
  • How powerful is the Valiant? Thanks to its vibranium armour, powerful enough to go toe to toe with the Elder Wyrm, a known planet-killer, and come out more or less unscathed, while also doing about as much damage as Thor.
• Carol, again, gets a lot as she ascends to Deuteragonist:
  • Nearly crushes Ludo Bagman's hand upon meeting him (and being condescended to), only stopping once she considers her point made.
  • Takes down a Red Room Agent in a couple of seconds, and doesn't do too badly against Yelena Belova either.
  • Has Lorna and Noriko supercharge her shield, then has Kurt drop her on Blob!Dudley, injuring him enough for Thor to move in and finish off. And she gets bonus points for even surviving the blast herself.
  • Along with Thor, Loki, and Wanda, talks Harry out of his Unstoppable Rage. Considering the state he was in, this is pretty awesome.
  • Notices Dracula's strike team sent to capture her, picks out all five of them and how they're covering the exits on the subway carriage, outmanoeuvres them when they try to grab her. How? They cover the carriage exits, so she grabs her brother, stuns one with a well-thrown football boot, another with a well-thrown shield, and smashes through the window of the still moving train, and makes it a fair distance outside of the station - having got off at Lexington-63rd, within a quick dash of Avengers Mansion - before being caught. After this, she still doesn't surrender, but negotiates her brother's safety, and makes it clear that if any of them harm him, she will make their undead existences a misery, casually deducing their true natures in the process. Even Dracula himself is impressed. Most definitely Alison's grand-daughter - and Peggy's great-granddaughter, come to that.
    • And she does all of this while carrying her teenage brother with one arm.
  • Accesses her psychic connection to Harry, while he's asleep on the other side of the Atlantic, even though by her own admission she's "about as psychic as a turnip," through sheer willpower.
  • Even while being evac'd in an Iron Man suit and being chased by Dracula's chief lieutenants, she still takes the time to save a fighter pilot being threatened by said vampires, costing her a shot at escape. Not bad at all - though, unfortunately, it is implied that one of said lieutenants later ate the pilot.
• In the sequel, Harry doubles down on his previous internal note that he never, ever intends to piss off Jean-Paul, by bluntly telling Ron and Hermione that Jean-Paul is the nearest thing in this world to a Spear Counterpart to Natasha. He then adds that he'd rather go another round with Dracula than fight Jean-Paul, and not because Jean-Paul is his friend. For context, Dracula is a Vampire Monarch who barely lost to Thor, then killed Perun, another Physical God, afterwards just to prove that he wasn't an easy mark; beat a Cerebro-amped Charles Xavier in a straight-up telepathic duel while simultaneously holding off Harry's physical attacks; and nearly killed Harry in a straight fight, twice, without getting out of second gear. Considering how Harry is hardly fazed by anything at this point, up to and including planet-killing abominations, this speaks volumes.
• Uhtred's not just a fighter - he's The Blacksmith, too. Forging a perfectly-balanced sword for Harry, tailoring it to his particular combat style is deeply impressive, but not unusually awesome. What is awesome is that he did so well enough to impress Tony.
  • During the Grey Court assault on Avengers Mansion, one vampire turns into a prehistoric monster of a bear, which even Bucky - the Winter Soldier - thinks seems too powerful to fight. Uhtred charges it head on, burying his axe up to its eye in the bear's jaw. Their momentum then takes them into the building, so we don't see the rest of the fight, but we do see how it ends — the vampire decapitated, and Uhtred standing triumphantly.
• Loki discusses how Jormungard (who once proved equal to Thor) is waking and creating a stellar cluster that will serve as a nesting ground for his children (more dragons like Dave the Elder Wyrm, who, it should be remembered, took broadsides from Thor and the Valiant just to soften up, and went toe-to-toe with Harry). Currently, Jormungard and his children are sweeping through the Shi'ar galaxy, and Loki believes that even the full might of the Imperium will not be enough to stop them. When he recommends that Asgard destroy the nesting ground, Sif simply nods and says that it will be done.
  • Sif teaming up with Loki a few times to hunt down and kill Surtur's servants.
  • As the narration notes, "There is a reason no one fucks with the Lady Sif. That reason is because she is a stone cold badass." Says it all, really.
• Wanda promised to reduce Sinister down to screaming atoms for the hell he put Harry through. She lives up to it, channelling both her father and the Ninth Doctor, mirroring the latter's speech. It's terrifying, horrifying, and awesome.
  Wanda: Actually, no. You're right. I am like my father. I am his daughter. And do you know why? Because I am going to fulfil that promise I made, a promise to render you down to traumatised, screaming atoms if you ever went near my godson again. And while I'm not going to have the time to make it last, I am going to enjoy it. So scream, you bastard, scream!
  • As the narration observes... "Hell hath no fury like a godmother who's already pissed off and who has just found out that her godson has been kidnapped by the person who has made his life a misery."
  • Butting heads with Mab over the latter's description of Harry (Dresden) as her vassal, with Dresden noting that she's essentially playing power games with the Queen of Air and Darkness - who, it should be said, is on Thor and Loki's level... at her weakest. And given the time of year,^note  The Queens of Faerie wax and wane in power depending on the calendar, with Mab growing in power between the summer and winter solstices she's well beyond that.
  Wizard mine, I think you'll find.
  • Going toe-to-toe with Selene, temporarily defeating her by making a tree grow up within her, and causing enough damage that it leaves open wounds in her (she is, remember, almost a goddess herself with a Healing Factor that matches Wolverine's). She then almost immediately taking on Cowl, a warlock of Senior Council level ability, going toe-to-toe with him as well.
  • Oh, and slapping her father Magneto when he gets a tad too concentrated on taking his revenge on Voldemort, then giving him a Badass Boast, to which he can do nothing but meekly apologize:
    "I want to make this very clear, father: you are here, at my request, to help, to prevent this ascension attempt, and not to have one of your trademark tantrums. I am the Sorceress Supreme, and I swear on my mother's soul, I swear that if you ever try and pull something like that again, I will see you spend the next decade in the bottom of somewhere that makes the Raft look like a holiday camp. Do. You. Understand?"
  • She then proceeds to duke it out with Cowl again, laughing off his psychological attacks, tearing down his claims, and destroying the Darkhallow ritual. Following this, she's willing to duel Voldemort (he flees before she has much of a chance, though she does get in one or two good hits), restores Luccio's soul to her body, and helps her father and boyfriend defeat Selene.
  • Upon meeting Jesus, she has him pass along a message to all the gods who might go after Harry — a warning that if they do, she'll make them wish they were dealing with Strange.
• Wanda's involvement in the First Task is no small thing either.
  • Saving Ron, Hermione, and the Twins when they get into trouble helping out in Hogsmeade and Hermione's chaos magic goes out of control, subduing Hermione's out of control power, scolding the lot of them, and effortlessly portalling them to an angry Professor McGonagall. It's also implied that she out-flew Tony Stark - who's capable of multi-mach speeds - to get there.
  • Teaming up with Ebenezar McCoy and Albus Dumbledore to literally chain the Elder Wyrm, an Animalistic Abomination capable of killing planets that's the size of a literal mountain, with water magic.
• On a more subdued note, Sean talking Ron down from making a scene at the Yule Ball and into having some fun instead - especially since he had the extra humiliation of no date - is no small thing.
• Upon meeting Ludo Bagman, Diana gives him a dismissive look over his condescending attitude and sexist comments, while simultaneously pinning down an angry Uhtred to stop him from acting. That's far from her only contribution, either.
  • Along with Uhtred and Logan, mowing through several Grey Court vamps in an Offscreen Moment of Awesome.
  • Grappling with a Dracula-controlled, part-Grey Court Peter Parker, bringing him down long enough for Harry to tackle him.
  • Taking out several more upper-tier Grey Court vampires, and holding her own against two more, despite the fact that they're each about as strong as she is. When Harry takes them out, she complains that she had them, something Harry doesn't deny.
• When Dresden shows up in Ghosts, his compulsive snarking at villains is entirely undiminished. First, he tells Mab, who'd just tried to manipulate him into becoming her Knight, to go screw herself. Later, he does the same to Sinister.
  Sinister: Your [Maddie's] programming has broken down again. There would appear to be some critical flaw in your make-up.
  Dresden: It's called free will, jackass.
  • Loki later remarks that Dresden's willingness to go through with becoming the Winter Knight, knowing the consequences, to rescue other Harry speaks volumes of his character.
  • Harry later uses a whip of magical energy to take down Lukin, in a move Jono compares to "Indiana Jones meets the Matrix." If only Harry had had a hat.
  • For the avid readers of his book series, fear not: Sue the polka-powered zombie T-rex is still on the menu, and Dresden's using her against Voldemort and Selene while being supported by Magneto. And it is glorious.
    • Sue charges through the masses of zombies as if they weren't there, and then fights against Selene after she turns into a huge dragon.
  • During the fight against the necromancers, as well as Sue's charge, Harry plays like a pro, mouthing off to Voldemort, using Soulfire against him and then (after being launched into Selene by Wanda) stab his metallic tipped staff/spear into Selene's head so Magneto can use it as a lightning conductor.
    • While Harry explicitly states that Voldemort was just toying with him (something supported by the fact that Voldemort nearly killed him about three seconds after he got serious), the fact that Harry did as well as he did against a much older, much more powerful, and much more skillful wizard, a fully fledged Dark Lord who had just casually murdered two seriously powerful Warlocks and a Warden, swatting another Warden (Ramirez) aside, while also tired and nursing wounds from Cassius is pretty respectable.
• Hermione goes along with Ron's plans to help in Hogsmeade when the First Task goes to hell, and saves the lives of Ron and the Twins when they're surrounded by a number of giant magma-rock constructs of the Elder Wyrm's, vaporising them with raw chaos magic. While she loses control, and has to be grounded by Wanda, considering that she's very new to this power and scared of it, it's no small thing to pull off.
  • She later experiments with her chaos magic, and proves capable of using it to transmute things, while also protecting herself from the resultant radiation (though not others, as Harry harshly points out), and temporarily break Harry's telekinetic grip. Harry, it should be remembered, is the third most powerful mortal psychic ever born, excessively well combat-trained, a telekinesis specialist, and very invested in stopping Hermione from doing what she was doing.
  • Before the Yule Ball, it's mentioned that other girls stop or reduce their scheming to feed Harry a love potion in large part because of some softly spoken and somewhat terrifying threats by Hermione. Suffice it to say, they make the 'SNEAK' thing she did in canon look relatively mild, and include never being able to trust anything that they ate or drank ever again. The "tone of detached ruthlessness" she delivers this in is noted by Harry (who now knows about her heritage) to be something he could just as easily imagine coming from Magneto.
    • After the Ball, she's also mentioned to have spread certain threats that bullying Ginny for her revealed attraction to girls, since she's dating Diana, would be met with unpleasant retribution. What those threats are is unstated, but they are apparently effective.
  • Despite being afraid of entering the Forbidden Forest at night and thinking that doing so is a very bad idea, she does so anyway because Ron (influenced by Voldemort) is, and you don't let friends do that sort of thing alone.
  • She's also fairly calm (if tense) in the Fallen Fortress, analysing the ruins and symbols on them, and keeps her head once being separated from Ron and dropped into a room without an apparent entrance, trying the perfectly logical tactic of conjuring some string, sticking one end to the ground, and paying it out behind her, Theseus style. Pity that the Fallen Fortress is an Eldritch Location with the associated Bizarchitecture.
    • It's also revealed that she's been training herself to perform every spell she knows with and without a wand in her spare time, starting with her favourite bluebell flames - while Harry's the prodigy at fire magic, she is by no means a slouch.
  • She keeps her head remarkably well despite being caught in an endless plummet and getting a look at/feel of the Fortress Spirit's corruption via her True Sight, after having been dragged through the bronze floor by her own reflection, ultimately resorting to a much more controlled pulse of chaos magic than last time, which leaves her on her feet after a series of horrifying visions. Additionally, when faced with her fear, she maintains a consistent rationality that Harry and Ron don't manage (though unlike them, she doesn't see through any of the illusions). She even adjusts remarkably well to being first possessed, then accidentally ejected from her body and into Harry's mind, mostly just being confused and annoyed and wanting to know where the hell she's got to.
  • While sharing a body with Harry, they combine her knowledge of spells and magical theory with his raw power to drive the Fortress onto the back foot in a display that even Dumbledore finds incredibly impressive.
• In chapter 70 of Ghosts, we learn that all of trhe Warriors Three have been working for Loki to dig up information and public opinion on Surtur, Svartaflheim, and Asgard's succession. Fandral lays out a detailed political analysis of the situation which shows off (if there was ever any doubt) that he didn't become one of the greatest swordsmen in the Nine Realms just by physical skill.
• Ron gets a bit more prominence in this book.
  • He talks Sean Cassidy into tutoring him extensively in hand to hand combat, which considering Cassidy's reservations over Ron's revenge fixation on HYDRA and duties, is not a little impressive.
  • His involvement in the First Task, helping out in Hogsmeade, while somewhat ill-conceived is nevertheless kind of awesome - he immediately realises the danger to people living in Hogsmeade, accepts that he can't help in the fight against the Elder Wyrm, runs off to get a broom (Harry's old Firebolt), then talks Hermione and Fred and George into helping him, and they do actually make a positive contribution... before everything goes horribly wrong and they have to get bailed out by Wanda.
  • It's small, but winning a casual chess game against Harry—with the implication that he's still well ahead of his old friend in this area—is pretty impressive, given that not only does Harry know his style fairly well, but he's also been learning tactics and manipulation from people like Clint, Natasha, Bucky, Loki, and Strange.
  • He and Hermione unhesitatingly offer their help, in any way they can, to Maddie when they find out that Harry's in trouble (granted, it's trouble related to his Trauma Button being mashed, but they don't hesitate for a second).
  • While he gets lured into the Fallen Fortress, that's partly Voldemort's fault and he gives a good account of himself when he's in there, keeping his head when faced by what appears to be the Winter Soldier (who he hates and is terrified of), despite what's probably at least a concussion and several cracked ribs, and gives it a very good fight.
  • Following this, he quickly works out the Spirit's game when it appears to him as the ghost of his father, leading to it back-handedly admitting that he's smarter than he looks.
  • After the gruelling fight above, where he's nearly killed by what's essentially the Winter Soldier wearing Harry's face, he responds to being left out of the resultant fight with the spirit (which is now possessing Hermione) by barging onto the Durmstrang ship and enlisting the help of Krum, running over someone heavily implied to be Karkaroff in the process, to get back to the battlefield, looking to try and draw out Hermione's mind and get her to fight the possession. It doesn't exactly work, but they get points for trying.
  • Sirius, Ron, and Krum work together to rebuild and Transfigure the Fortress into a prison for its spirit.
• Coulson gets his moments:
  • His calm interview style for the debriefing of the various participants in the Forever Red arc, subtly adjusting his tone to suit each participant - for example, he's dry and witty with Carol, and he's very gentle with Maddie.
  • During the Mirror Image arc of Ghosts, he pops up again and while it primarily stars Clark and Harry, he gets a few good moments.
    • He quickly identifies Harry, despite a carefully transfigured disguise, simply based on the particular shade of red hair that Harry had chosen to go with and his unchanged eyes (admittedly because Harry wasn't too sure of how to go about it and didn't want to risk blindness).
    • He smoothly rolls with Harry having pretended to be a White Council Warden at Spellman's Bar, taking control of the interrogation without a peep of objection from Harry, and effortlessly playing Good Cop.
    • Keeping his cool when faced with a baker's dozen of ghouls, then half a dozen of the merged results, distracting them from the customers of the bar while armed with nothing more than a pistol and the flamethrowers on Lola. This, despite the fact that he's entirely aware that without back-up, he's dead.
    • He quickly advises a newly armoured up Harry on strategy when retrieving Clark, advice that Harry (unusually) takes the time to listen to. And, crossing over with Funny Moments, he comes up with a quick cover for Harry for the benefit of the local authorities - he's a Knight In Shining Armour, right? White shining armour, in fact. So he's codenamed 'Galahad'.
    • Being entirely unfazed by the Battle of Smallville, acting as Alison's second-in-command, and smoothly arranging for covers afterwards.

• Dumbledore is still a secondary character, but when he shines, he shines.
  • Politely but firmly telling Arthur Langtry, a man whose political and (and possibly personal) abilities far outweigh Dumbledore's own, to back off when he inquires into Harry's Dark Phoenix episode.
  • Though it's an Offscreen Moment of Awesome, tearing verbal strips off of Snape when the latter went a bit too Jerkass towards Harry, enough that he now tends to act as if Harry doesn't exist (most of the time).
  • After working with Strange and Wanda to cut the Elder Wyrm's connection to the earth, he and Ebenezar McCoy counter the Earth magic and undo the worst of its effects.
  • After that, he stares down In-Universe Memetic Badass Stephen Strange, a man who has him completely, ridiculously outclassed in absolutely every way (and more to the point, has a very well-earned reputation for taking creatively nasty revenge on those who threaten him) and tells the former Sorcerer Supreme that if he even thinks that Strange is using his students or even the other Champions to "make a point," that Strange will regret it. Strange - who normally responds with humiliating punishment or outright murder when threatened - is impressed enough to take it onboard with a nod of respect. You may not like him, but you have to agree... Dumbledore's got style.
  • Later, he calls out Strange again for not informing himself and Wanda of Hermione's X-Gene, and warns him that they're going to have a longer discussion later, something Strange takes onboard with a grimace and a nod.
  • In general, the fact that Strange treats Dumbledore with a certain amount of deference speaks volumes, given that the only other people he's ever been seen to show any deference to are Gorakhnath (who he treats with a mixture of respect and amiable flippancy) Merlin (who's literally the only person in any world who can shut him up), both of whom taught him when he was young, and Destruction of the Endless, one of the most powerful and dangerous beings in the universe.
  • When the Fallen Fortress takes over one of his students, a budding Chaos Mage and Omega-class mutant, and starts going toe-to-toe with Harry, Dumbledore contains the disturbance and provides advice and suggestions while remaining completely unfazed throughout.
    • He then proceeds to completely cut loose against the entity with the full power at his disposal via the Elder Wand. Even Harry has difficulty fighting the thing. Dumbledore? He mops the floor with it. He redirects and counters its attacks with almost casual ease, while giving it a Don't Make Me Destroy You speech in a tone of Tranquil Fury reminiscent of Magneto's right before he curb-stomped the Winter Guard. It ignored him. It promptly regretted it. Oh, and it should be noted that he out-fought an Eldritch Abomination with Omega-class Reality Warper powers while still in his dressing gown, and barely even seems tired afterwards.
  • When Karkaroff goes on a rant over Krum getting involved in the Fallen Fortress fight, he takes it in stride... until the former Death Eater starts blaming Hermione for the situation. Then Dumbledore shuts him up with a single word, and explains in clear terms what happened, that he will not take such verbal abuse of his students, and that he fully expects a formal apology for Hermione at a later point. All without raising his voice.
    • Harry also notes that Dumbledore manages to make himself look intimidating despite still only wearing his (slightly charred) dressing gown.
• Maddie Grey, given her sheer power, skill, and ruthlessness, has no shortage of these.
  • Pre Heel–Face Turn, she takes out Harry, an Omega Class psychic himself (if still a fledgling) in one shot - though it should be noted that part of the reason she could do that was because she sucker punched him.
  • Effortlessly mind-controls half a dozen superpowered teenagers (including one with experience of mind control and a will strong enough to control the Green Lantern Ring), while facing down Harry, so subtly that they aren't even aware that anything's wrong until the control is broken.
  • Her psychic duel with Harry is a full-blown battle royale, with side effects including:
    • The local region of the Nevernever, a weird and malleable realm to begin with, being turned literally on its head, with clouds made of lava, mountains made of cloud through which lightning runs, snow falling upwards in weird helix formations, and stars falling from the sky and forming burning lakes of cold fire in valleys being some of the comparatively normal consequences, and ripple effects travelling across the majority of Faerie. Others include patches of space where time runs at different speeds, ghosts and tormented spirits being given horrific forms by the excess psychic energy, allowing them to run wild, while even buildings are coming to life. Oh, and if you look too closely at the water, the reflections you'll see will most likely be of some horrific alternative past or future.
    • The immediate psychic shockwave rips through not just Earth, but all its interconnected realms too, including the Nine Realms. To most, it hit as painful headaches, to those with basic untrained psychic/magical senses it's a migraine so bad they can barely stand, to those with stronger, trained gifts, they're left holding onto the floor, and the really strongly gifted ones are instantly knocked unconscious and treated to epic scale bad dreams. Oh, and seers scream 'multiple mish-mash prophecies', ghosts and spirits are empowered and driven mad, and pretty much every god and demon sits up and pays attention.
    • And during all that, Harry's fighting as indirectly as he can - he doesn't dare confront her head-on, because he knows that she'd crush him.
  • Being chosen as Worthy by Mjolnir is no small thing, especially since this is before she's even completed her Heel–Face Turn.
  • Post Heel–Face Turn, she kicks it up a notch and reveals a gift for a good "Reason You Suck" Speech.
    • First, she gives one to her erstwhile master.
    Maddie: 'If I'm design'd yon lordling's slave, By Nature's law design'd, Why was an independent wish, E'er planted in my mind?' I am no longer your experiment, your weapon, or your slave. I and I alone am the Mistress of my fate, the Captain of my soul. You have no power over me, Doctor Essex. Not any more.
    • Cue a deliciously satisfying Oh, Crap! from Sinister when he realises he's in the same room as a Omega-level psychic who could and would enjoy stomping him into paste with her mind.
    • When Strange steals her thunder, she snaps him out of tormenting Sinister by reminding him that they have other business. Bear in mind that Strange is pretty much insane at this point, has just effortlessly murdered Sinister - who was utterly terrified of him - and has a well-deserved reputation as a nightmare. And she stares him down. This is not something many people dare to do.
    • Then, while she, Jono, Dresden and Fix are surrounded by, and under fire from, an army of armoured Red Room personnel, she first telekinetically shields them, and then reaches out and, in the culmination and confirmation of her Heel–Face Turn, lifts Mjolnir. Cue a vast roll of thunder and a lamentation from the Lemony Narrator that the universe had no justice, for if there was, it would have cut to a rousing rendition of 'Thunderstruck'.
  • After that, she curbstomps the Red Room personnel and shuts down Lukin.
    Maddie: Hear me, Lukin. As I told Doctor Essex; I am not his servant, weapon, or slave. I do not belong to him. And Harry does not belong to you. I never erased his mind - I hid it. And now, I am going to restore it. I am going to take him from you. He will never be your weapon, or your slave, ever again. Your power is broken, old man. And if no one else does, I will ensure that it stays that way. For now you have nowhere to run.
    Lukin: You think yourself so clever. So righteous. So noble. But you are none of those things! You are just a thing! A hunting hound, a prize bitch, bred from nothingness by your master, trained to perform and do as you were made to do! And that is all that you will ever be. You think this is some great defiance, some assertion of your freedom? You are deluded. You are not a person, you have no freedom! All this is, all that you think you have gained, it is just an error in your programming! You are nothing! Do you hear me?! Nothing! While I, I am so much more! I am more than human, I am Russia! I am the Motherland incarnate! I am more than you will ever be, and your tricks and powers mean nothing!
    Maddie: Perhaps. But I am Worthy. And you are not.
  • Once that's done, she creates a point-to-point Nevernever portal, the sort of thing which normally requires the power of the likes of Mab or Titania to generate - that said, how much of this is her, and how much is Mjolnir, is unclear.
  • Thereafter, she shows the ability to casually contact Harry across the Atlantic, which required serious effort from him to reciprocate, and then when he does it all on his own in the Bloody Hell arc, clearly takes everything he's got.
  • She also demonstrates skills at Astral Projection so comprehensive that even Harry doesn't know that she's not physically present until he's right up close. It should be noted that she was under a lot of emotional stress at the time, meaning that she probably wasn't even paying full attention.
  • Maddie (along with Jean) manage to connect with all of Harry's friends and allies across the world and beyond - including Asgard - so they can help him in spirit through his PTSD episode.
    • She also tells him, loud and clear, that nothing of what happened to him at the Red Room is his fault, and that he's got nothing to be ashamed of. This is also a mark of significant Character Development on her part, as she had the exact same problem/belief to overcome.
• Dracula gets one in his introduction in Chapter 24. When Voldemort makes his proposal, it seems like Dracula's going to accept an offer of alliance which would most probably make him a patsy. Then, an instant later, the King of the Grey Court has Voldemort by the jaw and calmly informs him that he's not going to be Voldemort's pawn, and their alliance - if he decides Voldemort's information is valuable enough to justify one - will be on his terms, while also using his own powers to suppress Voldemort's with absolutely no discernible effort. In the space of one short scene, it is made very clear that this is a different class of villain.
  • He is mentioned as having gone toe-to-toe with Thor, and barely lost-and immediately sought out and killed another thunder god (Perun), just to make the point that he wasn't going soft.
• Dracula telekinetically tears Avengers Mansion apart to make it easier for his minions to assault. Later, he keeps the upper hand in his fight with Harry, shrugging off everything Harry manages to throw at him, including an enchanted bullet to the shoulder from Bucky that would have destroyed a lesser vampire, and a Cerebro enhanced psychic attack from Xavier. He handles Harry, hits Bucky with a lightning bolt that qualifies as an Offhand Backhand, and as for Xavier... see below.
  • Special mention goes to this particular Badass Boast:
    "I am Dracula. I defied empires, causing the fields of Europe to steam with the blood of my enemies, long before I began drinking it as well. When I destroyed their armies, I made a screaming forest of their survivors, earning the name Lord Impaler. I am the Lord of the Vampires, I have slain gods and demons alike, and I, little Prince, am going to teach you a lesson you should long since have learned. Why not to meddle in the affairs of your betters."
• As noted above, while grappling with Harry, Dracula gets hit by a psychic attack from a Cerebro-amped Xavier. The first sucker-punch takes him down... but after that, he beats Xavier in a telepathic duel. Remember, this is the man pretty much universally acknowledged as the best telepath in the Nine Realms, the most skilled, and until recently, most powerful mortal psychic alive. Wielding Cerebro, no less-and Dracula still beats him while also fighting off Harry - though, granted, in Xavier's defence, Cerebro had had a psychic fusebox installed after the incident with Gravemoss' dark magic almost frying his brains, and Dracula's counter-attack fried that rather than Xavier's brain. Even still, though, that is no mean feat.
• Upon seeing (what he thinks is) Harry channelling the Phoenix, which destroyed almost the entire Grey Court just over a century before, Dracula goes ahead and attacks him.
• As the daughter of Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter, Alison Carter is a product of heroic stock and makes a point to show it.
  • She can make Jack O'Neill, Tony Stark, and even (to a certain extent) Deadpool shut up and behave. Additionally, this is the woman who taught Nick Fury a lot of what he knows about being The Spymaster.
  • During the "bad old days," she went toe-to-toe with Natasha, multiple times, pre-Heel–Face Turn. As Harry later notes, very few people have the distinction of being able to walk away from that at all, let alone do it multiple times.
  • Personally led the mission to rescue her son from when he was captured in the Gulf War.
  • After he was captured by SHIELD, Alexander Pierce made himself more valuable alive than dead for a few months by slowly leaking secrets. Alison breaks him in five minutes (though, admittedly, she had a trump card in being able to reveal that the Red Son was loose).
  • In chapter 9 of Ghosts, Alison and Jack O'Neill, the former of whom is (supposedly) retired, go into battle along with the Avengers to protect Carol and Harry, pulling off Casual Danger Dialogue and later going up against the enraged Blob alongside Gambit and Jono. Whereas Gambit gets his bo snapped and driven through his shoulder, Jono is killed or, at the very least, crippled, Jack received major spinal damage, and Nezhno is wounded, Alison doesn't seem to have any injuries whatsoever.
  • After she finds out that Joe Danvers asked Harry to rewrite Carol's mind, she very calmly states that she's going to have a discussion with Joe. Over breakfast, she calls the president of his company and arranges for him to be Kicked Upstairs, keeping him far away from his family for most of the year while ensuring that he has enough leave for his family to be able to see him at important events (which will be supervised by her). She then visits Joe, effortlessly shoots down his bluster, sips her tea with one hand while keeping him in a painful joint lock with the other, and makes it very clear that he will still remain faithful to and support his wife and family, or else. As she puts it:
  "Imagine what I could do if I was actually trying."
  • During the battle against Dracula, Alison shoots down, and then holds her own against, several more high-ranked Grey Court vampires in hand-to-hand combat, all the while engaging in more Casual Danger Dialogue with Bucky.
  • It's revealed that when the Smallville meteor shower occurred, Alison Carter knew exactly what was going on. She deliberately sent Nick Fury and Phil Coulson to the location, knowing that they would leave baby Kal-El with a human family and ensure he was looked after. Yep, she pulled a Batman Gambit on Nick Fury and Phil Coulson. Not only that, she did it without them even knowing of her involvement.
  • She also makes it very clear to Jor-El that while she served as The Creon to Jim Woo, the first director of SHIELD, there was no doubt in either of their minds that when push came to shove, she could make him do what she wanted.
  • When Reynolds sends an assassin demon after the Kents, Alison takes it on singlehandedly. And by "takes it on," we mean "shot and then kicked through a barn door."
• Clark acting as a hero on the sly for years, using his Super-Speed to get in and out of situations and deal with enemies before they can even notice him, is highlighted as a mark of his capabilities. Indeed, Harry states that Clark's level of control over his strength (which was at Super-Soldier levels as an infant, and has only grown since then) is equal to that of Thor or Loki, who have centuries of practice. The fact that he's been able to give various 'meteor mutants' a Tap on the Head without causing any permanent damage serves as testimony for this.
• We finally get the debut of the hero that has been a reference for all comic books since his inception: Superman is definitely joining the good fight after Clark loses his Power Limiter, beginning when he accepts a Kryptonian Crystal that Harry had retrieved - and Clark puts on the classic red-and-blue uniform.
  • Then, his first move after initially subduing Doctor Reynolds (who has been draining him of energy in the past months for his own sick experiments, threatened to kill his family and had just almost drained him completely of all his energy, nearly killing him)? To tell him sincerely that he wants to help him recover from whatever caused his madness.
  • Reynolds (who is pretty much under control of a demon) rejects the offer, and attempts to attack him - and Clark instinctively reacts with a punch fast enough to create a sonic boom on its own, hard enough to send Reynolds flying to the Pacific. SHIELD registers the attack as in the upper Iron Man/Loki range. Harry is notably impressed.
  • In the ensuing fight, Clark easily keeps up with Harry in fighting Reynolds, and despite being completely untrained, is noted to be a surprisingly pragmatic and effective fighter (and given that this is coming from Harry, that's no small accolade).
  • Reynolds lets out a ripple of magic that screws with all technology in a non-inconsiderable radius... including an airplane that was flying too close. You can guess what happens next.
    • Flying for the airplane, he ends up shielding half of it from the explosion of its engines.
    • At the other side, a girl saves her sister from falling out of the plane - but at the cost of falling herself. Clark dives down to save the girl (fighting his fear of heights at the same time) and catches her, consciously making sure not to stop too fast because Inertia Is a Cruel Mistress. The girl's name? Lois Lane.
    • He then races after the plane, putting himself below its nose and forces the 350-ton plane into a water landing in the middle of the Missouri River, saving the entire crew and passengers.
  • He then comes up with the plan to finish Reynolds: send him flying high in the stratosphere - thus preventing him from getting any energy from other living things, while he can absorb sunlight. Both Harry and Alison are impressed by his strategic acumen.
  • And, just to finish it off, he knees him in a very delicate part and finally sends him flying with a last Megaton Punch.
• As Doctor Strange later reveals, he nudged Gambit into Sinister's path explicitly to be the Spanner in the Works for him and the entire Red Room. This turns out to be entirely justified on his arrival in Forever Red.
  • He's not even 20 when he first appears (and is technically even younger thanks to being an altered and force-grown clone of Scott Summers, before he escaped Sinister's lab as a child). Despite this, he runs rings around both Sinister and the Red Room.
    • In the case of the former, he manages to coax Maddie into a shaky but definite sense of her own identity outside of being Sinister's psychic muscle/experiment, one that an extra nudge from Harry, lays the ground for her own decision to assert her own agency and make a triumphant Heel–Face Turn.
    • In the case of the latter, he managed to out-manoeuvre them sufficiently that he found Natasha, rather than the other way around, successfully acting as her mole.
    • For context, Sinister managed to keep ahead of Strange himself for decades, if not centuries, and the Red Room terrified both SHIELD and HYDRA, and they both knew that they couldn't trust him. Also, these were the people who trained Natasha and the Winter Soldier.
  • He also plays a mean game of Xanatos Speed Chess, adjusting on the fly to the fact that Sinister and the Red Room have upped the ante by kidnapping Harry, successfully tracking Harry in the chaos of his break-out, obliquely telling him where to look, and then convincingly throwing the fight.
  • In short, while the resolution of Forever Red depends on Maddie's Heel–Face Turn, none of it would have been possible without Gambit.
  • When he reappears in Bloody Hell, he's in a number of dark, confined spaces, fighting Grey Court vampires - many of them hand-picked by Dracula himself. Is this a problem? Nope...

Unfinished Business

• This one is mostly the Carol show, and she doesn't disappoint:
  • Treats the sudden appearance of the Green Lantern Ring — a potentially planet-busting weapon that's at least on par with Mjolnir — as a minor annoyance (and after all she's been through, it pretty much is) and tries to make it leave. When it doesn't, she resigns herself to whatever's coming, and eventually bullies it into cooperating by remote control (that is, she keeps it on a string around her neck and makes it do things like find Gambit for her). Considering that literally the only other person able to make it do anything without wielding it is Strange, that's seriously impressive.
  • According to Peter's POV section, she not only threw her shield at him (when he was a Dhampyr in Bloody Hell so hard that it not only sent him flying into the subway wall hard enough to dent it, but also left a burn-mark that is still there, even with a Dhampyr's Healing Factor and magical medical treatment and over three months to heal.
  • When discussing the Green Lantern Ring, she reveals that she knows just how powerful it is, and that its designers decided that to protect a world, you need the power to break one. Plus, like everything else magical, it has a will and agenda of its own. That makes her control of it in the first book all the more impressive.
  • On a lighter note, she's learned enough of her great-grandfather's (and her mother's) Command Voice to get Peter to shut up and snap to instinctive attention mid-panicked babble.
  • She also gets to show off her Super-Soldier abilities, now much refined after training from Steve, Clint, and Natasha.
    • She responds to the Ring teleporting Peter into her room by moving in a blur before he even landed and stopping from decapitating him with the edge of her shield before he even has a chance to respond.
    • She slips out a window, climbs across a roof without disturbing a single tile, finds the best route down, and drops to the ground with only minimal sound - all by moonlight alone. Peter, who also has subtly superhuman reflexes and balance, contrasts this by scrambling all over the roof, nearly falling several times, and when he does fall, Carol's used the noises of his movement to calculate where he is and where he'll land, dropping him neatly into an open (and full) skip/dumpster.
    • She curbstomps two thugs high on a cheap and nasty patch-based version of the Super-Soldier serum (not unlike the Venom 'Slappers'), which makes them completely immune to pain - much like real life methamphetamines - in a matter of seconds, having immediately picked out the one in a thirteen man brawl who had decent aim and was targeting Gambit. Him, she crushes his fingers and disarms with a pinpoint throw of her shield, takes a surprisingly powerful punch to the face without slowing down and KOs with a single shot. The second, armed with an excessively large knife and moving fast and unpredictably, only delivers one small cut before she flips him, disarms him, and knocks him out by kicking him in the head. Finally, she lines up another three, and with what she admits is her first attempt at a multi-person ricochet, takes out all three of them. Related to the above, Gambit alludes to seeing a '90 pound asthmatic' put on a couple, before ripping off the door of a car. That's serious enhancement, on thugs that are a lot more than 90 pounds.
  • When Strange transforms her shield into a suit of Iron Man-style armor, Carol puts her previous (if brief) experience with one of Tony's suits to guide her in how to fight with this outfit. And it allows her to easily overwhelm several creatures identical to Archangel, which are just as deadly as the original.
  • After spending some time in the Green, Carol realizes that Nimue breaking the Green Lantern hasn't destroyed the Ring's magic, just changed how it's channeled. She proceeds to reclaim the magic for herself.
  • Carol proceeds to take out the mountainous Man-Thing in a single shot, before really flexing her muscles, using that newfound power to deal with the hurricane - a literal recreation of Katrina - that was unleashed on New Orleans by Pegasus being set free, which she does by stopping it dead in its tracks, right down to each drop of water being left floating in midair.
  • She then goes one better by doing the same thing to time itself, creating a bubble of frozen time through sheer willpower. Wanda and Nimue both comment on the fact that this ought to be pretty much impossible, certainly without going bonkers or frying her brain.
  • Nimue, meanwhile, is genuinely - if grudgingly - impressed by both her skills and her tactical ability (which she considers 'annoying, but brilliant'), noting that seeing her in action is like 'Alan Scott come again'. Given the kind of respect Alan is afforded by everyone from Magneto downwards, and Nimue saw him in arguably his finest hour, at the sealing of Pegasus, after having wielded it for decades, and that Carol has wielded the Ring for maybe four hours total with a very quick session on the basics with Alan's spirit, this is one hell of an accolade.
  • She also whips up a plan in a matter of minutes, which starts with a Batman Gambit tactic that utterly bamboozles Nimue. How does she do this? She splits the Ring into dozens. Something no one knew was even possible. Even Strange' remarks that it is "unprecedented".
  • And, as Nimue sourly observes, it neatly a) prevents her from pinning Carol down and forcing her into a direct contest of skill and/or power, which Carol would lose, b) obviates the massive divide in skill and ability to split focus by empowering everyone else to cover all the other problems, c) forces Nimue to split her focus beyond its limits, d) puts the ball square back into Nimue's court, forcing her to go hunting for the bearer of 'the Master Ring', which risks opening her up to a backstab from the still massively powerful Master Ring.
  • And while Nimue figures out exactly where she is, and is indicated to be correct when she believes that Carol has the Master Ring... but the in medias res narration makes absolutely clear that Carol is luring her straight into a trap.
  • Also, did we mention that her using her shield-suit as an alternative Lantern means she gets the whole power of the Lantern without any of the inbuilt safety measures and Restraining Bolts, which should have burned her up? And are giving her a serious case of borderline Go Mad from the Revelation cosmic senses? Both of which eventually drive Nimue, who's in the same boat and far more experienced, completely nuts? And she's managing all that, while doing all this?
  • On a side-note, Carol's now casually creating full-fledged and very realistic (Nimue critiques them as overly-detailed) constructs off-the-cuff with her Ring and controls them flawlessly, even depleted of a fair chunk of its power and without the above-mentioned restraints, which have to be messing with her focus. Quite the step up from standard energy blasts and green Hard Light constructs.
  • These constructs later include a fully functional replica of the freaking Millennium Falcon, with a few bits of customisation to make it easier to use.
  • Carol's master plan — use Wanda and Merlin to distract and wear down Nimue, then piss her off enough that she'll chase Carol around the world. When they reach the South Pacific, Nimue catches up and grabs her... which Carol wanted, as she then grabs Nimue in return and starts draining her magic back into the Earth. And then smugly pointing out while Nimue's connection to Pandora's Box will send that magic back into her, it's far more primitive than her suit and so far away that it's under far greater strain, meaning that it'll probably burn out any time now.
    • Then Carol kicks Nimue in the face with conjured football boots with two-inch studs at multi-mach speeds, before grabbing her and throwing her all the way to Mars. And once they reach Mars, the two really start going toe-to-toe, with Nimue constantly trying to escape and gather her wits, and Carol battering her from pillar to post while Nimue lashes out at her. And by 'lashes out' we mean 'drops a moon on her head'. It doesn't work.
    • To finish, Carol then chases Nimue back to Earth and diverts her by a valuable few degrees to smash her facefirst into the Gulf of Mexico so that she can't stop the effort to cut off her power at the source.
    • She then reforges the Green Lantern, states that "power is meant for more than breaking shit", and enacts 'the third wish' to make everything right again - she heals as much of the world as she can, from things to people, and after the after-party, permanently splits the Ring into Seven, creating the Green Lantern Corps.
• Steve's role in the Battle of New Orleans isn't too shabby either, going up against a symbiote-possessed Forest Person, an expert water-mage the size of Hagrid with Lovecraftian Superpowers, buying time for Harry Dresden and Remus to critically weaken it.
  • When he hears that Carol was turned into a tree, his request for repetition is cold and dangerous enough that everyone present, up to and including the Sorceress Supreme and a member of the Senior Council, starts edging away.
• During the climax of Unfinished Business, Tony's granted a duplicate Green Lantern ring by Carol, and puts it to use creating a replacement Iron Man suit after the one he's using is destroyed by Nimue.
  "I don't need a suit. The suit is just a tool. The suit isn't Iron Man. Tonight, more than ever... (conjures new suit) I am Iron Man.
• In Unfinished Business, Bruce is rarely directly shown, but he makes his presence felt.
  • Supernaturally enhanced and outright possessed tidal wave about to swamp New Orleans vs the Hulk's Shockwave Clap? Hulk wins.
  • Nimue's Super Star Destroyer Horcrux is dispatched to wreak havoc, and it takes Wanda and the SHIELD Helicarrier's full efforts just to slow it down. How do the heroes mean to take it down in earnest? By getting Clark to Fastball Special the Hulk into its bow and start tearing it apart from the inside, with even Nimue taking note of the sheer destruction he unleashes. This is something that resists the full might of the Scarlet Witch and the Grey Twins working together, and he's ripping through it with his bare hands.
  • And on a lighter note, the Hulk is apparently calm and rational enough post-battle to be festooned in streamers at the after-party and help judge a tap-dancing dance off between Deadpool and Jack O'Neill (It Makes Just As Much Sense In Context).
• Wanda going toe-to-toe with the fully empowered Nimue and casually batting off her attacks, trolling her all the while - mainly by lecturing her on her technique. It's also worth noting that the only other people who manage to go one-on-one with her at full power are Strange, Merlin, and Carol - the former is supremely skilled and with eons of experience, the next is both the most powerful wizard ever to live with 1500 years of experience and nearly flattened by Nimue, and the latter can match Nimue for power and still gets hurt/has to gamble when fighting her. Wanda? Doesn't even take a scratch. In the end, Nimue has to throw the Super Star Destroyer horcrux at New Orleans to distract her.
• Dresden finally has his lightsaber (actually a modified blasting rod) after building it with Luccio. And it's vibranium. It even makes the noises. He proceeds to put it to good use during the Battle of New Orleans, cutting down most of the monsters that come at him with ease, including a Man-Thing.
  • He then shows how much he's learned from Wanda when he goes up against Symbiote-enhanced versions of a feral Archangel, an armoured Quintaped (sentient and explicitly magic-resistant even before enhancement, and so dangerous that their native island is Unplottable), and a Forest Person (see below). He's escorting a group of civilians, mainly teenagers, at the time. Problem? Not really. The Archangel gets swatted into the bedrock, and as it turns out, even the best armour and magic resistance don't do diddly against a Destroyer Hand Cannon fired through a Sling-Ring Portal into the soft underbelly, with the resultant cringing wreck being finished off with a brutal offhand fireblast that turns something the size of a small tank into a flaming cannonball that levels several buildings.
  • The one thing that gives him actual trouble during this fight is the Forest Person (a high-end Person of Mass Destruction level water-mage with centuries of experience that's built like Hagrid) possessed by a symbiote. And that's partly because it has the smarts to take hostages. It's tough enough that sticking his lightsabre through its head just hurts it, and it outclasses him in every department. He finally manages to get the upper hand on it by unleashing all the kinetic energy absorbed by his shields like a concussion grenade when it's spread out over said shields, trying to eat its way through - with a raised middle finger and a Jaws reference. The result is more like a bomb which flattens and craters the entire block. When this still isn't enough to kill it, he works with Lupin to flash freeze it (and the super-sized swimming pool of water it was in), finally leaving it sufficiently vulnerable for Peter, Monica, and Gambit to deliver the coup de grace.
• At one point during the climax of Unfinished Business, Maddie works in tandem with Jean to conjure a Phoenix construct, which is used to literally tear apart Nimue's conjured Super Star Destroyer. Not only was it powered by a significant chunk of Nimue's soul, it should be noted that unless Nimue's been reading the Expanded Universe, most likely it was based off the Executor, which clocked in at 19,000 meters/nearly 12 miles long.
• Going into chapter 3 of Unfinished Business, it seems like the villain will be Jason Woodrue, a moderately dangerous but manageable dealer of alchemy and magic based drugs, including physical enhancers, who happened to get a bit too ambitious by going for Project Pegasus and unleashing whatever the hell is in there. Then, the protagonists turn to a contact of Gambit's, Doctor Vivian Lake, who used to work at Pegasus and keeps an eye on it from her cottage out in the bayou.
  • Lake is harmlessly kooky, though a bit more on the ball than you'd expect and casually reveals that she's a minor wanded witch, toying with her wand, going on about the sorts of things in Pegasus and giving some vague but apparently useful information... then, it turns out that she'd hidden sedatives in her smokey candles, her wand-twirling was actually casually casting a spell to enhance the sedatives, she'd had a poppet of Gambit with covered eyes to keep him from seeing through her, and she effortlessly flattens the half-stunned group - which includes a Dhampyr (Peter), a Super-Soldier (Carol), Gambit, and Deadpool - with a few flicks of her wand, before swiping the Green Lantern Ring from Carol and casually breaking it to her will. Oh, and she's been pulling Woodrue's strings all along. In a single scene, she demonstrates that this is a very different class of villain. Which really isn't surprising, given who she really is: Nimue.
  • In the following chapter, Doctor Strange reveals who she really is, adding that her powers are actually crippled thanks to Project Pegasus poking around the Isle of the Blessed in the 1970s and accidentally awakening her dormant spirit, meaning she Came Back Wrong. Yes, she did all of the above, plus manufacturing a Mob War, and having inveigled herself into Project Pegasus, with comparatively crippled powers. For raw strength, her powers are on par with Strange's own - and despite not being a natural duellist, she was the only opponent of Merlin's to go up against him and survive (albeit largely thanks to his inexperience), despite having a Thor-sized thunderstorm dropped on her head by the thoroughly pissed off Merlin. Indeed, per Strange, of all Merlin's enemies, she came closest to killing him. It's made clear that with the Ring, or any boost from Pegasus, taking her on in a contest of power is not an option - while Merlin might beat her, it would, per Strange, split the US from the mouth of the Misissippi to the Rockies, cracking open Demonreach in the process.
  • When she reappears in chapter 6, she's rejuvenated and munching an apple, revealing the history of Pegasus and how she brought it down last time as part of her plans, what she intends to do now... and then, when Carol mocks her for explaining her Evil Plan, she states that Carol's made a mistaken assumption, before tossing aside the Green Lantern Ring and casually turning Carol into a tree without missing a beat, effortlessly bypassing her energy and magic absorbing armour, before finishing her explanation to the newly transformed Carol - she's already done it.
  • Nimue gets another in the following chapter when, as part of a "The Reason You Suck" Speech, she actually emotionally wounds Strange by bringing up the fact that, for all his power, intellect, and far-seeing ability, he didn't stop Camlann and the associated fall of the Golden Age. Strange recovers his footing pretty quickly, but it's notable that she is the first and only villain in the entire story so far to actually wound him on a personal level. Of course, this is a mixed blessing, since a wounded Strange is an angry Strange.
  • She's also made herself into the Champion of Magic, and boosted her power to beyond even Merlin's level. She then proceeds to go toe-to-toe with Strange, who goes all-out against her. Given just how very, very dangerous he is (and how much he wants to make her suffer), the fact that she comes out the other side alive is testament to just how strong she's become, and how resilient she is, especially given that she's upset him enough to pull out some of his nastiest tricks. She even manages to shrug off his most brutal psychological warfare, including exploitation of the fact that he Cannot Tell a Lie.
  • Whenever she has a moment of pure rage, the side-effects tend to be spectacular. Like 'every volcano in the Pacific Ring of Fire going off', 'roaring 100 miles of lava and spawning hypercanes across the Tropics', '50 miles around of the Pacific turning to molten glass', 'making the entire North American Plate ring like a bell', and 'nearly frying every defence Wanda has just by saying her name' spectacular. This isn't even stuff that she's trying to do, it's just happening as a side-effect.
  • When they finally really get into it, Merlin hits her with a strike of such sheer power that it would've lamed or crippled anyone short of a top-tier Demon Lord, Skyfather, or Earthmother. It only succeeds in drawing a few drops of blood and a Death Glare, and she ultimately overpowers him - hell, she actually brings him to his knees (briefly), while pulling out all the stops for the below-mentioned things.
  • When she finds out that countless magical practitioners are standing against her all over the world, despite her powering them up, she responds by overcharging their wands and foci, blowing most of them up (Harry Dresden's vibranium alloy blasting rod only survives by venting all the power - sufficient to fry a local Walmart).
  • When she ramps it up a notch, it takes the Grey Twins, Wanda, the Hulk, an exceptionally powerful Helicarrier, and most of the available superheroes just to take down a magical construct in the form of a Super Star Destroyer, which she mixes with a piece of her soul, essentially making it a giant Horcrux.
  • Concurrently, another two horcruxes/phantoms are generated during her Final Battle with Carol, when she splits off parts of herself to attack Mab and Titania in order to take control of the Faerie Courts. And as Fury notes when she recalls them to give herself a boost against Carol, she was winning. It's also worth noting that all these horcruxes? They're repurposing of decaying pieces of her soul that Strange made her vomit up. Managing to pull that off on the fly, adapting so effectively by turning one of the single most brutally nasty pieces of magic in the series to her advantage, is pretty damned impressive.
  • And between all of that, she's effectively fighting Merlin, Wanda, the Grey Twins, the Hulk, a young Superman, a Lantern Ring armed Iron Man, a fully powered SHIELD Helicarrier, both Mab and Titania and their Courts, and a fully Lantern powered Carol, all at once - and that's just directly, with Strange in the background orchestrating everything to disrupt her workings and countless other practitioners (all super-charged by her own efforts) working against her. And for much of that fight, she's taking them on and winning.
  • Oh, and one of the things she does while fighting Carol, on Mars? She resorts to dropping a moon on her.
  • And during all of this, Nimue herself is both pumping power into her worldwide spells unleashing raw magic on the world which in turn is keeping Strange busy. Can you say multitasking?
  • It's also worth noting that if Strange hadn't, predictably, been in exactly the right place to trap her at the very end, her spirit would likely have succeeded in re-harnessing all that power and preventing them from sealing Pegasus.
• Alison is mostly in the backseat, but being able to make Deadpool shut up and behave has to count as an Awesome Moment of its own.
• Clark more than holds up his end at the Battle of New Orleans, comfortably flattening multiple feral Archangels, smashing straight through at least one conjured Chitauri Leviathan, and treating Chitauri magic-sourced blasts as mild irritants while repeating his catch trick on Tony Stark with a fraction of the distance to spare.
  • He then tops this off by helping take down Nimue's horcrux Super Star Destroyer. How? By pulling a Fastball Special with the freaking Hulk!
• Gambit's deadly dangerous for reasons that have nothing to do with his powers, as Carol takes pains to emphasise to Monica in Unfinished Business. However, he's no slouch with them or in a fight, either - when Carol sees him being attacked by a dozen thugs in a confined space, her immediate impulse is to feel sorry for them (and rightly so, off-brand super soldiers or not).
  • In Chapter 6 of Unfinished Business, he shows off just how powerful his mutant abilities are — when the group infiltrating Project Pegasus is about to be overwhelmed by the Cordyceps fungi-animated corpses, guardians of a sentient forest who couldn't overwhelm them so instead opted to infect them, he responds to the resultant cloud of fungus spores by reaching out and charging the water molecules of the fog that the forest is generating, obliterating the entire forest and blasting the roof off of Pegasus in a blast that can be seen all the way back in New Orleans.

Short Stories

• Emma Frost—not a woman to be easily impressed—firmly believes that Gambit would more than hold his own amongst the Hellfire Club, for most if not all of whom scheming comes about as naturally as breathing.

The Phoenix and the Serpent

• After several months in the past, some of them training in K'un L'un with Shou-Lao to understand the Phoenix and reconcile it and his nature (and his issues), it culminates in a training duel to test whether he is Worthy - in this case, whether he's learned his lessons. The resultant display leaves Sunniva awestruck, as he demonstrates a far greater level of skill than he has previously, including some new uses of his powers (a massively powerful psi-knife and time magic as a means of effectively casting a hundred spells in the time it would take to cast one), channelling raw power on a scale that Sunniva estimates he logically shouldn't be able to until he was at least four hundred. Shou-Lao curbstomps him, but he's left knowing he's been in a fight.
  • And going in, Harry knows he can't win the fight, not without going for the kill, and in the midst of all of it he figures out just what Shou-Lao is driving at, what he's ultimately testing: intelligence, willpower, strength, but most importantly, self-knowledge - understanding and acceptance of why he wants to master the Phoenix, because while Shou-Lao knows it, he needs to know it and acknowledge it.
• Harry helps Sunniva deal with Annihilus' incursion into reality. And while he does initially do this by fighting and destroying the Negative Zone's planet-sized manifestations, the main role he ultimately ends up playing is saving individual lives and spreading hope across the galaxy, simply being the hero he always has been.
  • When Galactus shows up after the fighting is done and makes it clear he wants a word with the Phoenix hosts (and Sunniva explains who and what he is), Harry responds exactly as you'd expect from him.
  Harry: (speaking in a Phoenix enhanced voice) COME ON IF YOU THINK YOU'RE HARD ENOUGH!
• Once again showing how his real power is bringing hope, by using the power of the Phoenix to super-charge Hal's jury-rigged gauntlet (five rings permanently linked to a battery, squeezing out the last embers) and get him to believe in miracles.
• How does he plan to distract the Grandmaster while Sunniva, Julie, and the others rescue Sakaar's inhabitants? By using the power of the Phoenix to shapeshift himself, entering the tournament as a Mystery Knight, then throwing off his robe and revealing an armored, bearded figure wielding a lightsaber. In case there was any doubt as to the identity of his disguise, the following line makes it very clear:
  "Hello there."
• Harry-Wan promptly ends up running the gauntlet in the arena with ease, casually carving his way through a handful of Brood Warriors and a Brood Queen and destroying a Kree Sentry singlehandedly, without taking a scratch. Canonically, Brood Queens tend to be a team-level threat or require a high-end Person of Mass Destruction like Carol Danvers to take down, and Hal notes that he's encountered one in a nightmarish bust that involved their ability to telepathically control thousands to tens of thousands of people. Likewise, a Kree Sentry is explicitly designed to function as a mixture of nuke, planetary scale Terminator, and Do-Anything Robot, and canonically they've previously taken entire teams to take out. Oh, and they've got a planet killing bomb as a power-source. Harry is restricted to telekinesis, his enhanced physical abilities, and what he admits are significant advantages in the form of passive Phoenix senses. He's armed with a sort-of-lightsabre. He takes them to pieces.
• At the end of the gauntlet is Lobo, generally considered to have been the biggest and baddest thing on Sakaar bar only the Grandmaster himself and possibly the Silver Surfer, and he's not in genial Laughably Evil mode, but out for blood to restore his rep and going full Combat Pragmatist. He's a bruiser that even the likes of Beta Ray Bill, who canonically rivals Thor, are deeply wary of, and he declares his intention to slaughter them all to make a point. He even casually murders Miek, before Harry can even react, just to punctuate his point. He's a Nigh-Invulnerable Physical God with borderline Complete Immortality and a Healing Factor that borders on From a Single Cell, with eons of experience, and Harry? Harry is restricted to telekinesis, which Lobo initially neutralises, physical enhancement, and his sabre-sword - plus whatever help passive Phoenix senses are. Harry ends up fighting him to a savage standstill through skill and guile.
• Immediately after, he's put up against Anakin Skywalker/newly minted Darth Vader, fresh from Mustafar... via his soul being spliced onto Johnny Storm. Not only is he good enough to match Anakin, he's got enough of an edge to control the fight, and he's good enough at providing a facsimile of Obi-Wan's style that while Anakin recognises it's not Obi-Wan, he's distinctly unnerved by how close a replication it is, all while Harry's alternately snarking in true Obi-Wan style and trying the Talking the Monster to Death approach. All told, we've heard how much of a Master Swordsman Harry is becoming, but really seeing it is something else. And then, he chooses to end it not with a sabre strike, but with a Cooldown Hug.
• The Grandmaster, incensed at the above because it's not how he wanted things to end, tries to assimilate him out of spite, eating his soul and identity from the inside. What does it achieve? To his shock and no little fear, absolutely nothing.
  Harry: So uncivilised.
• After that, Harry, still in Obi-Wan mode, smooth-talks him into a new show, The Team back together, Master and Apprentice standing against all odds... because he just knows that the Grandmaster simply cannot resist knowing how the story ends.
• Sunniva is first introduced by going toe-to-toe with an entire sentient parasite dimension, and winning. This book reveals that she did this while keeping up a running psychic dialogue with Harry and teaching him to figure out his role. And given the way the conversation goes, it seems like she's not even putting her full effort into it!
• Sunniva simultaneously staring down Galactus, de-escalating the situation by getting Harry to back off, and making it very clear to Galactus that while she's not looking for a fight, she will make him answer for any disrespect to her nephew.
• Sunniva's response to being hit on by Lobo? Epically shutting him up, transforming his clothes into pink silks, transmuting his steel chains into daisy chains, and then hitting him. Into orbit. With his own motorcycle (which she afterwards turns to scrap). And a shout-out to Eowyn, no less.
  Lobo: No man disrespects the Main Man!
  Sunniva: I am no man.
• The following chapter has Sunniva show off not just her powers, but her smarts: She changes her appearance and then power signature (rather than obscuring it entirely, which might be more noticeable) to pass as a Kryptonian (one strong enough to dissuade anyone else looking for trouble, not powerful enough to really take an interest in), uses a combination of regular and psychic senses to observe and analyze the nature of the beings and the place around her, somehow sneaks into the gladiator grounds around the great arena, and searches out a group of gladiators who are both trustworthy and likely to have information on the Silver Surfer. It's the kind of stealth and perceptiveness we might expect to see from, say, Loki or a trained SHIELD agent, and speaks volumes about her experience.
• Harry and Anakin vs Midnight - or rather, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker vs Darth Revan. It is ludicrous, it is plot-significant (in that Midnight is making the reference on purpose) and it is awesome. Especially considering that Harry, despite all he's shown he's capable of, and Anakin, despite all he is capable of (with the added clarity of no longer being crazy), despite being perfectly coordinated via a psychic link, barely singe the outside of Midnight's robes and manage to destroy one of their lightsabres. It is no surprise that Julie remarks that Midnight is Just Toying with Them. Especially since Midnight fakes a Disney Death, and promptly stabs Harry in the back, before mockingly dropping their sabre and disappearing.
  • Actually, everything about Midnight's relatively brief appearance, from disturbing the otherwise affably unflappable Julie (who reveals that he could rip a Scarab in half with little effort, to playing with Harry and Anakin, successfully pulling a fast one on the Grandmaster, somehow surviving Harry going nova and scouring Sakaar with the power of a Phoenix Hive Mind, and then popping up to reveal that it's All According to Plan and present the empty space to their master, Kang the Conqueror.
• Harry pulling an Obi-Wan Moment (as Obi-Wan, no less), giving Anakin some much needed advice, then disappearing dramatically to buy himself time to come up with another plan. Which is both deranged and brilliant, drawing from what he did before entering Sakaar - using the Phoenix his way. Namely, Phoenix fire is fed by emotion and life, and feeds it in turn. And Sunniva, as part of their plan to teleport everyone out and protect them from the Grandmaster, has linked up every mind on Sakaar. Harry feeds a little Phoenix Fire in, and goes from a single Phoenix host without the ability to charge up, whose power won't make a difference against the Grandmaster as he slowly overpowers Sunniva, to someone wielding the Phoenix fire of billions, the kind of power capable of destroying or creating a vast swathe of the Multiverse, and capable of scouring Sakaar to nothingness.
• Anakin in his turn doesn't do badly either, taking in the advice and going full Mortis on the Grandmaster, going toe to toe with him - the Grandmaster turns into a sun and Anakin, much to his own surprise, snuffs him out like a match. And he's backed up by Johnny, who he was Fusion Danced with, granting him lightspeed movement and reactions, causing utter devastation.
• Hal starts showing his chops as a fully powered Lantern, casually tearing through an Annihilus-level incarnation of the Grandmaster as a simple expression of his mood. And then, the other four rings take fly, picking Beta Ray Bill, Kilowog, Korg, and Ben Grimm, recreating the Green Lantern Corps.
  • At the same time, the Darkstar is sent after them, along with the Silver Surfer, the two implicitly equal in power and desire to die rather than hurt anyone. Hal takes on the most powerful servant of the Grandmaster and implicitly beats him in aerial combat, calling him the same thing he does anyone else who enters his skies: trespasser.
• The whole scheme to teleport everyone out works - and they drop them off on Mars, which Sunniva casually terraforms, to Harry's astonishment. She also, just as casually, separates Johnny and Anakin.
• The Grandmaster deserves some kudos for sheer determination to live, first trying to escape through the teleportation matrix and being toasted by Sunniva, then the tiniest fragment of him survives in Francis Richards' imagination, and he possesses Francis and all his vast potential when they get out. Pity that Harry saw that one coming. And lodged a protection in Francis, much like the one he had, which promptly reacted extremely violently to the Grandmaster, who Sunniva ripped out, hurled into space, and summoned Galactus to devour the screaming remnants.
• Harry picking a fight with Galactus over the Silver Surfer's freedom, and Sunniva and Julie (with repulsor wedge heels) mediating to ensure that the Surfer gets a chance to be free in the present. Norrin also demands, and gets, the freedom to think and choose, so he can focus on uninhabited or sparsely inhabited worlds.

Doctor Stephen Strange

• Since he's running the whole show, and his temporal shenanigans are what they are, he gets a folder all to himself.
• Being the Sorcerer Supreme and more to point, the series' Magnificent Bastard in chief thanks to being a time traveller and a monstrously powerful Seer, and masterful deployment of the Butterfly Effect, he gets a lot of these:
  • He not only cheerfully navigates the series' massive Gambit Pile Up, but he plays everyone, all these brilliant schemers (including but not limited to Nick Fury, Peter Wisdom, Magneto, Charles Xavier, Albus Dumbledore, Lucius Malfoy, Loki, Odin, the Elder God Chthon, the Phoenix Force a.k.a. Destruction of the Endless, and possibly the rest of the Endless), like a harp.
    • And he achieves this by only appearing onscreen in two brief glimpses until chapter 47, only using magic on a few occasions and without telling a single lie. Though in the latter case, as everyone notes, his proclivity for Exact Words means that this is not the same as being honest.
• One of the reasons he has historically been taken seriously despite his rarely using magic on a grand scale is his duel with a demonically enhanced and Elder Wand wielding Grindelwald in Berlin in 1945. Loki, who was in Europe at the time, explicitly described Grindelwald's power as "literally god-like". His and Strange's multi-day duel flattened the city and at the end of it, Grindelwald was stripped of almost all his enhanced abilities. Strange quite literally walked away whistling, telling Dumbledore to pick up the scraps in his own duel, because Grindelwald was a problem he'd helped create. It is because of this that no one doubts Thor's assessment that if he had fully taken the field in the Voldemort War, they'd have been picking bits of Voldemort out of the wall within an hour.
• Given that most Sorcerers Supreme usually don't even last a decade in office, Strange deserves credit for lasting hundreds of millennia before giving up the mantle.
• Knowing about Fury's Shadow Initiative when even Alexander Pierce (probably) didn't know about it.
• Saving Coulson's life after he was stabbed by Loki.
• Challenging the entire White Council to a duel over the matter of a 13 year old Wanda Maximoff, whose powers were running wild. Prior to this point, even the combined forces of Albus Dumbledore, Charles Xavier, Howard Stark and Magneto hadn't made them blink twice. But when Strange threw down the gauntlet, no one dared pick it up.
• Considering Wanda's impressive feats, it should be noted that this is the man who taught her everything she knows. Particularly given that the mortality rate for Sorcerer Supremes in waiting is described as being ridiculous, with many barely lasting five years. Wanda lasted a few decades before taking on the mantle.
  • And considering Dresden's feats as her apprentice, it should be noted that he recommended Dresden as chief candidate for the position.
• Apparently, after the Disir kidnapped Harry, Diana, and Uhtred, Strange found out. And got pissed off. He restored their consciences and trapped them in a crystal ball, for as long as he feels is appropriate - which with his lifespan and time travelling abilities, could be a very long time.
  • Remember, these were 13 monsters that a Skyfather could only exile.
• Resurrecting Sif and Harry Dresden in chapter 45, something which is supposed to be near impossible, certainly impossible for any human who isn't Merlin. This is the first indication that Strange looks on the Laws of Nature as being more in the order of guidelines than actual rules - or, indeed, a handbook for guided disobedience.
• Dumbledore relates how, in the 1820s, the then current British Minister for Magic suggested that Strange, being technically a British citizen, ought to work for British magical interests.^note  Read: the Ministry's interests The Minister entered Strange's London apartments like the haughty Pureblood lord he was, and left half an hour later, a pale, cringing wreck who gibbered at the sound of bagpipe music and vomited uncontrollably whenever he heard the words 'theoretically,' 'authority,' and 'parsley.' Needless to say, no one tried that ever again.
• In chapter 74, swiping Loki's decapitated head from under Gravemoss' nose and delivering it into the Avengers' custody, then swiping it again, this time from the very heart of Asgard's royal palace and leaving behind a note saying 'I.O.U. one Loki', apparently just to prove he could. And then putting together a ritual, performed by Hermione and the Twins that puts Loki back together again. And to top it all off, for that ritual, apparently just for the hell of it, he swipes Alastor Moody's wooden leg.
• It's very low-key compared to everything else, but in the same chapter, he also Apparates/teleports straight into Hogwarts, and later on continues popping around the castle. Which we've been repeatedly told is impossible, not that Strange cares about little things like that. The rest of the cast just end up dismissing it as "Strange being Strange, in every possible meaning of the phrase", and Hermione has a small nervous breakdown.
• While it could be argued that the entirety of chapters 75 to 78 (if not the entire story) can be credited to him because he arranged the events involved, here are some of the best moments:
  • Talking Odin into trusting him and letting him send Harry, Carol, Diana, Jean-Paul and Uhtred into the midst of HYDRA's base even though Loki was still reduced to an Oracular Head and Thor was in a coma. Admittedly, he did have the trump card of being able to say that the Phoenix was looking out for Harry.
  • Giving Harry and his friends a pep-talk with a few warnings scattered within it and giving Carol the Green Lantern Ring without telling her that it's more than just a Magic Ring, then using the distraction of Fury's Shadow Initiative and Excalibur attacking to slip them into the base. This comes back when the battle seems to be going awry (undead giants the size of skyscrapers are involved) and Fury tears strips off him for what he did. Strange just smugly points out the window as the kids, having retrieved Mjolnir and freed the imprisoned Avengers, promptly take down the giants in about thirty seconds, if that, turning the battle on its head and reducing Fury to dumbstruck silence.
  • Breaking Lucius and reducing him to a Villainous BSoD with a Breaking Speech in the form of a single Wham Line before derisively remarking, "amateur." Then he promptly frees the Winter Soldier, brainwashed as Malfoy's bodyguard and enforcer, from his conditioning, restoring his memories, then sends the temporarily returned spirit of Arthur Weasley to give him a pep-talk to break him out of his resultant Heroic BSoD.
  • Finally displaying his skills as a duellist by engaging Gravemoss in an epic duel, forcing Gravemoss to draw on more and more of the Darkhold's power until Chthon takes over, which while it leads to Strange being flattened (though he shuts up Chthon's monologue with a well-timed Iron Fist punch to the jaw), seems to have been part of his plan judging by his remark of "check."
  • His call of "check" is thoroughly warranted. Because, unlike Chthon, he knows what is going to happen: everything is in such a state of flux that the Heroes of Tomorrow (Superman, at least one Flash, the Green Lantern, Quicksilver, and hundreds of others) are undoing everything Chthon has caused... and the Elder God cannot do a goddamned thing about it, because it is his power (slightly modified by Strange) that has brought them in.
  • Whilst in the middle of duelling Gravemoss, he takes the time to project his astral self over to Jason Todd and give him a You Are Better Than You Think You Are speech, helping him to make a Heel–Face Turn and become (at least temporarily) one of the Knights of the Cross. Now that's multitasking!
• In the first book's final chapter, he justifies his long term manipulations by listing some-not even all-of the various benefits that his actions have made possible. To whit, it is quite a Long List.
• When first appearing in Ghosts of the Past, it's apparently right after fighting off an attempted invasion by Dormammu. And he's still in good enough condition to snark about it, undo the "Freaky Friday" Flip and deliver Pepper's baby.
• He reveals that he nudged Gambit into Sinister's path in order to make him a Spanner in the Works for the Red Room. This wouldn't be particularly impressive by his standards, until it's remembered that he had no way of knowing where Sinister was or what he was up to. With that being said, arranging for Gambit to be picked up by him is no mean feat.
  • For that matter, while the events of the Forever Red arc are clearly a gigantic mess, Strange deserves recognition for being able to keep things from being even worse, especially since he's essentially flying blind for much of it. Furthermore, he's able to masterfully manipulate the butterfly effect so that even most of the repercussions of the events throughout Book II work out in the heroes' favor. Frigga notes afterwards that Strange drove himself so hard that, even were he a Captain America-level Super-Soldier, he would have killed himself from the strain.
• Easily guides Maddie, Harry Dresden, Sir Fix, and Jono through the Dreaming, a realm which is even stranger than the usual bits of the Nevernever.
• Pulling off a couple of excellent veils to hide Harry and Fix, and an even better one for himself, before dropping it and terrifying Sinister with a fantastically creepy purred Pre Ass Kicking One Liner as he emerges from the shadows behind Sinister, complete with Glowing Eyes of Doom.
  "Hello, Nathaniel. Long time no see."
  • After that, when reminded that they're not just there to torment/terrify Sinister, he takes him out pretty much effortlessly.
• Effortlessly getting in the Council Elite meeting even though he is weakened by not having eaten or slept in weeks.
  • More than just "getting in" — using the Tesseract, he basically abducts the Skyfathers, the most senior and powerful gods on Earth, and brings them to the Rock of Eternity. Without them noticing.
    • It should be noted that he was loaned the Tesseract freely by Thor. While partly due to a mixture of trust and desperation (and a calculation on Thor's part that Strange would step in if he could, because Harry's too important to his plans for him not to), it's also explicitly stated that if Strange had wanted to swipe it from the highest security vaults of Asgard, he could have.
  • When an indignant Zeus then tells Strange to "mind his place" and threatens him, Strange locks the King of Olympus in a Demonreach-inspired prison cell with a word, and lets fly with an epic Badass Boast against the other Skyfathers:
    "I am the Sorcerer Supreme. I am the Evergreen Man, the Lord of Time, and I know my place perfectly well. I fight beings like you every single day. I have guarded reality against them for centuries, and for the most part, I have done it alone. For centuries I have stood, and I stand here still, now with an Infinity Stone in my hand. Do you really think that you, any of you, is a match for me? So how dare you? How dare any of you? How dare any of you raise your voices to me!"
  • This is then followed by a "The Reason You Suck" Speech regarding (with few exceptions) how they never really cared about humanity and they're all only acting out of self-interest, not concern for the Earth, and explaining how their actions might screw up his plans to defend Earth from Thanos. Thereafter, he says they can either back down and aid his plans willingly, or he'll lock them all within the Rock of Eternity and use them as batteries. Guess which one they choose.
• It's revealed that Strange helped Merlin to build Demonreach—in Dresden Files canon, an island built to contain nameless things, dark gods, and the worst of the worst monsters, with a sentient security system and of such complexity that it utterly bamboozled Bob, a centuries-old sentient magical supercomputer.
• That guess Odin made about Strange being about his own age? He's off by about two magnitudes. Strange is in the ballpark of 500,000 years old. And his original teachers in the arts of magic? None other than Gaius, and Merlin himself.
• Ghosts has a couple of Offscreen Moments of Awesome: Strange mentions having destroyed enough beings and creatures while protecting Harry to make a small mountain - or possibly a large hill. He's also been hunting down and killing all of the clones of Essex.
  • He gets a couple more during the period when he's pretending to be dead, killing Mavra and purifying the Leanansidhe of her corruption by Nemesis, the latter in exchange for Mab releasing Dresden from his debt to her, while also pointing out that being a potential future Sorcerer Supreme means Dresden is already fighting Outsiders and doesn't need to become the Winter Knight, thereby also freeing Dresden from Mab's obsession with making that happen. He also casually remarks that Mab won't interfere, as she 'knows much, much better than to get in his way'. It's also awesome because he notes that he chose that particular moment to do it, when he's no longer Sorcerer Supreme and therefore Mab can't say that he's just doing it to benefit his role.
• Casually using the Philosopher's Stone (which he nicked from Dumbledore's pocket, earlier that morning, a couple years ago) to transform a volcano into a mountain of mithril and vibranium ore, a feat which has Wisdom actually drooling.
• After the battle is won, he uses his skills as a Time Master and some Atlantean techno-magic to restore the Hogwarts grounds and Hogsmeade to almost entirely the way they were, offering some of his funds to restore the rest. This includes setting up a localized sped-up time field to cause the equivalent of centuries to pass in 24 hours, re-stocking the forest with flora and fauna - some of it rather stranger than what was there before - and turning that volcano into a fortress and advanced school of magic, complete with classrooms, laboratories, libraries, and vibranium/mithril mine.
• Nonchalantly telling Harry Dresden that he has a daughter, who's now going to live with her mother in relative safety, and whom he can visit from time to time. Why? Because Strange genocided the entire Red Court. Something which he accomplished by setting up a bloodline curse via Camazotz, a Physical God who's the Monster Progenitor of the Red Court. Yes, he casually hunted down, subdued, and murdered a god. Just for the sake of convenience.
• During the second book, two characters in the know independently note that Strange (after having retired as Sorcerer Supreme) is more dangerous than Death herself, who's considered to be the most powerful of the Endless, and essentially one of the most powerful beings in the universe full stop. Given his feats and how much God's Hands Are Tied applies to the Endless, it's an assertion that nobody, in-universe or out, argues with.
• An offhand comment from Dresden becomes way more awesome with a little thought. It's mentioned that Strange created the Archive, a living magical repository of everything that's ever been written. In the Dresden Files, it's explained that the role is passed from mother to daughter, and shown that she has the magical power and skill to make multiple Fallen Angels look like noobs with the metaphysical equivalent of one hand tied behind her back. She's also the head of the Venatori, an organization that exists to fight agents of the Outsiders. Not only is creating the Archive an incredibly awesome moment on its own, but in one move he single-handedly created a backup for all of humanity's knowledge and a powerful ally to help stop the Outsiders from getting a foothold on Earth.
• He exposes Peabody as a Black Council mole on the White Council and eliminates him (in front of the Senior Council, in fact, going by the blood stain), then takes the Senior Council to task for their Head-in-the-Sand Management. Special note should go to him staring down the Merlin and calling him out on how he and his predecessors have been pale imitations of the real Merlin, and how far they've let the White Council fall from the potential he saw when Merlin founded it.
• He calls out Nimue for how shortsighted her plans are, before making it clear he not only saw her scheme coming, and allowed it to play out for his own goals, but also took steps to ensure that New Orleans was well protected when she launched her attack on it. While also providing the heroes with a soundtrack, turning New Orleans into an amp, with a well-timed rendition of We Will Rock You.
• Going toe-to-toe with Nimue, now the Champion of Magic with the power of pantheons, plural, and the most powerful antagonist encountered so far bar only Chthon. Possibly. While it's far from the first time he's fought beings at or even above that power level, this is without the extra powers of the Sorcerer Supreme mantle. And as later chapters imply, he was winning—or at least doing well enough that she makes a deliberate effort to avoid a rematch if at all possible.
  • He later adds that he explicitly wasn't trying to kill Nimue. When Tony assumes that he was trying to torture her, Strange responds that if that were the case, they would have heard the screaming.
  Monica: Um. Carol sort of...stopped time.
  Strange: So?
• In chapter 67, we finally learn the identity of Strange's first apprentice: Apocalypse. And when Apocalypse rebelled against his teacher, Strange raised an army against him, killed his body, and trapped his soul in the ravaged flesh, along with a "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  "I taught you so much, but in the end, you understood so little. You think compassion is weakness. You think that patience is cowardice. You think that your might gives you every right. You are an arrogant, cruel, greedy boy. You are not my student, much less my son – you are my failure. You are my lesson, about the risks of arrogance and shortsightedness. Consider it heeded. Now let your fate be my warning to all: look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair."
  • It gets better. And darker. Per Word of God, he knew that Apocalypse would eventually figure out how to send his soul beyond his body and possess people. Did he try and stop him? Nope. He just turned his soul into a yo-yo - every now and then, Apocalypse would get a taste of freedom, then he'd be snapped back to his Fate Worse than Death, which was all the worse for knowing what freedom was like. There is a reason no one crosses him.
• Remember when Strange used the Tesseract to cow the Council Elite into subservience? He reveals that he did something similar (albeit somewhat more diplomatically) with a different Infinity Stone to the Vishanti, in order to convince them to let him take in Wanda, prophesied as a potential destroyer of the world, as an apprentice.
• In the finale of Unfinished Business, he demonstrates just what a mage and bard of his calibre can do to counter Nimue's work, turning all the power she's unleashed into a woven spell of incredible complexity to make the world normal again - when, again, she's unleashed all of the world's magic and turned into overdrive. How is he 'heard' over the 'background noise'? Well, per Carol's suggestion, it involves Swamp Thing as an interface/instrument, his own Splinter Ring... and an amp. What is this amp? Oh, just Nimue's Empire State sized Magitek/bio-tech broadcasting Spire. And when a severely irritated Nimue tries to throw him off with a few duff notes, he doesn't even skip a beat, improvising them in. All while playing tunes explicitly chosen to annoy her.
  • Additionally, his magical abilities are already known, but the narration compares his music to the painting of Da Vinci, and is said to have left Mozart in awe. He also gives a Badass Boast couched in a reference:
  "'... well, it might be a sin, but I'll take your bet, you're gonna regret, 'cos I'm the best there's even been.'"
• Putting the final nail in Nimue's coffin by intercepting her desperate attempt to save her power source by tossing his makeshift holocron in her way, trapping her inside it.

Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier

• Starts out as the One-Man Army and The Brute for the bad guys, and the idea that he's back terrifies just about everyone. Everyone.
  • It's mentioned that even before he was made a super-soldier, he helped Cap take on and defeat vampires and other superhuman monsters during the War.
  • Going from US Army Sergeant to 'Europe's Terror' and public enemy number one with a semi-mythical status during the Cold War, the Winter Soldier appearing In-Universe in the first book of The Bourne Series (published in 1980) as the faceless antagonist - in Real Life, said antagonist was none other than legendary assassin Carlos the Jackal.
  • According to Tony, the Stark bodyguards had only one response plan if he attacked - get between him and the family, then die as slowly as possible to give them time to escape.
  • Absolutely terrifying an entire room full of Death Eaters with his entrance, after killing a chimera and a nundu on the way in. Only one wizard ever succeeded in killing a chimera and was killed falling from his flying horse. A nundu takes a hundred trained wizards to subdue. The Soldier didn't even slow down, and throws their heads into the centre of the room to show everyone what he's capable of.
  • Fury admits that while he's not scared of the man, he's 'terrified of what he's capable of'.
  • Natasha believes that, alone, he could completely destroy SHIELD, which is why she opted not to try and find him, in case his failsafe came on line.
  • James Bond got the drop on him and had him at gunpoint, on the point of making his traditional Pre-Mortem One-Liner quip. About half a second later, he's dead after being shot in the stomach and the head.
    • This is later used as an Awesome Moment of Bond's own - he got the drop on the Winter Soldier, which almost no one ever managed.
  • The only person who survived fighting him was Agent Peter Wisdom, a mutant, wizard, and a badass in his own right, who is also later confirmed to be Regulus Black. And Wisdom only survived by apparating first to Hull, then, when he was followed, onto the Helicarrier.
    • Wisdom was the only person on that base who survived. The Soldier didn't even take a scratch. He mentions witnessing the Soldier killing three men in about half as many seconds, with as many shots, from a handgun, about 90 meters away. Improbable Aiming Skills indeed.
  • Gravemoss, a completely Ax-Crazy Omnicidal Maniac necromancer, acts like a kid on Christmas day when he senses him coming, and is, according to Lucius Malfoy, fascinated by him.
    • Gravemoss also reels off some of his many names: The Ice Warrior, The Sleeping Death, The Shield Breaker and Europe's Terror.
  • Lucius is actually more frightened of him than he is of Gravemoss. At first. Then he finds out how much of a monster Gravemoss really is.
  • The Weapons Plus Project, which included Wolverine and Weapon X, was created specifically to stop him.
  • His utterly enormous kill tally (though it is admitted In-Universe that it might be exaggerated, and some of his were actually Natasha's): 1 American President (JFK - Natasha set up Oswald as a patsy and seduced Jack Ruby into killing him), 12 other non-magical Heads of State, 16 Generals, 70 lower ranked officers, 213 police officers of all ranks, 79 bodyguards, 9 Ministers of Magic, 16 Auror Commanders, 147 Aurors, 2 Directors of SHIELD, 5 Deputy Directors, 89 SHIELD/SSR Agents, 43 Agents of MI5 and MI6, 22 Agents of MI13, 200 agents of other security agencies and 500 other miscellaneous targets.
  • And adding in the superhumans, Spitfire I, Union Jack and the Destroyer. Spitfire II only escaped, barely, through her Super-Speed and Weapon X was left a beaten ruin under the rubble of the destroyed Weapon X complex.
  • The "two directors of SHIELD" is particularly impressive given that SHIELD hasn't had all that many directors, and at least two of the known ones prior to Fury (Jim Woo and Peggy Carter) are confirmed as not having died by his hand.
• In chapter 60, he ambushes and beats up Captain America, manages to break off the control HYDRA has on him (at least partially) because his orders conflict with his Wouldn't Hurt a Child attitude, and kills a car sized werewolf that was about to kill Carol Danvers with his bare hands, and brings her back to her cabin before she dies of hypothermia.
• The culmination of his Heel–Face Turn with this line.
  Well. Fuck the mission, then.
• Carving his way through both the Ministry of Magic and the SHIELD Helicarrier, while doing so in such a way that he's able to spare as many as possible without making it obvious (HYDRA do eventually figure it out, though in the most part due to a confluence of factors).
  • During the above, Mercy Killing Arthur Weasley so that HYDRA can't torture him (or worse, hand him over to Gravemoss).
• Catching Steve's shield when it's thrown at him.
• Stalemates Wolverine in a knife fight, while carrying broken ribs. He then ends the fight by shooting him in the face with an RPG.
  • Followed up by shaking off what's left of his Red Room conditioning, refusing to kill President Ellis. And then saving the First Lady by double tapping the HYDRA agent about to shoot her. Through several walls.
• In chapter 77, after Strange finally wipes out all trace of brainwashing from his brain he goes after Fenrir Greyback, still in his giant, demonic wolf-form that made him a threat to the likes of the aged-up teens. The fight lasts thirty seconds, if that, and he saves Remus' life.
• In chapter 9 of Ghosts of the Past, following his Heel–Face Turn, he goes toe to toe with Sabretooth, fighting him evenly. Then, since he feels that he needs to end the fight quickly, slips back into the Soldier persona and crushes him in a couple of minutes, at most.
• One chapter later, he goes up against five enemies at once; three which are estimated to be Beta class, the other two of which are wearing knockoff Iron Man armours and are estimated low Alpha Class. It takes him exactly 90 seconds to dispose of them.
• After having been teleported into a forest, while Harry and the vampires take no more than a moment to assess the situation, he just shoots the vampire holding Stevie in an instant, then kills two more in under five seconds.
• Forming effective battle strategies against the Grey Court vampires in seconds, taking out several, and successfully turning chaos into a set-piece battle. He even winds up wounding Dracula himself with a couple of well-aimed shots.
• On a lighter note, he shuts down Rita Skeeter with about two sentences.

Erik Lensherr/Magneto

• Way before his proper introduction into the story, Magneto was considered to be the The Dreaded among the supernatural world for several very good reasons. His accomplishments include:
  • Purging three successive Inner Circles of the Hellfire Club, the third one (after the deaths of Howard and Maria Stark, Howard being one of the few humans Erik ever considered to be a friend) being most thorough, according to Xavier. Sean Cassidy later described his own anger, though considerable, to be a firecracker next to the atom bomb of Erik's rage. Just the mention of his name is enough to make Sebastian Shaw Junior back off and go pale.
  • Working as a Nazi Hunter for over four decades, including the Thule Society.
  • Creating and maintaining 'Avalon', otherwise known as Asteroid M.
  • Fighting Lord Voldemort when they were both young men and forcing him to flee. Wanda mentions that there are rumours that they had a rematch, but she doubts it. Why? Because if they had, everyone "would've heard [Voldemort's] screams. For weeks." The veracity of this is demonstrated when Magneto does finally catch up to Voldemort, and proceeds to subdue him immediately (see below).
  • It's implied he wiped out the Manson Family before they could embark on their murder spree.
  • Managing to fight off every magical — and then some — superpower in Europe and several others from all around the world when Wanda awakened as a mutant and a witch. Even if it was temporary and he was forced to ask for help at the end, the message was sent: no one is allowed to touch his daughter.
  • In the early 1980s, he successfully and stealthily took over Madripoor with the help of the Brotherhood, ruling from the shadows, and making his point about not being interfered with by turning a Soviet battle group into scrap, sinking a US nuclear sub, and destroying surveillance flights from China and India. Clint explicitly states that everyone decided just to let him be, as it was best not to annoy "the most powerful man on the planet" - and that for all he was an iron-fisted shadow dictator, he actually did a lot to clean up a legendary Wretched Hive by crushing the Cartels, Triads, and Russian Mafiya, "among others". Also, while Alan Scott could have taken him (and eventually did), the fight would have devastated the capital, killing hundreds of thousands as a side-effect. What spurred them into action? Introducing the Legacy Virus into the civic water supply as a means of rapidly boosting the mutant population by force, and damn the consequences. Cue a desperate Enemy Mine of SHIELD and the Red Room, including a pre Heel–Face Turn Natasha, supported by the X-Men, just to lure him out.
• SHIELD's chief countermeasure for him? None other than Alan Scott himself, wielding the Green Lantern ring. Heck, just the idea of them going toe-to-toe multiple times is incredible.
  • Magneto remarks in chapter 78 that he recognises the ring, usually from when it was coming at his face along with the rest of Alan Scott's fist.
• Then, when he makes his Dynamic Entry, he proves how incredibly powerful he is, by causing a giant geomagnetic storm that plays haywire with all communications as a mere side effect of his entrance and crushing the previously utterly impervious Vibranium-fitted Dreadnought.
• Magneto goes toe-to-toe with the Red Son, and wins. Not just that, he wins while holding back. Now one starts to understand just why he was The Dreaded for pretty much everyone before his Heel–Face Turn.
  • Oh, and this is right after crippling the Winter Guard, seven of the Red Room's best, killing at least one of them, in less than two minutes.
  • Furthermore, he does all of this without a single civilian casualty, saving a full passenger plane that the Red Son had turned into a giant bullet, mid-fight.
• In chapter 26 of Ghosts, Harry is introduced to Avalon, aka Asteroid M, an asteroid that Magneto captured and hollowed out, before transporting metal there, mining, refining, and shaping that metal, and doing most of the building work. By himself (albeit with a little assistance and advice from Mar-Vell, primarily on the life-support system). Bucky confirms that it's about three-quarters the size of Hogwarts.
• When he pulls a Big Damn Heroes moment in chapter 31, he does so by freezing the knife which Cassius was about to use to torture Harry Dresden. Magneto then paralyses the man, nails his mouth shut with his own knife, and stops the roughly 1,500 year old sorcerer from casting a Death Curse by twitching a finger, in the midst of a disturbingly casual conversation, before finally killing the man with a slight effort of will.
• Forming his (in)famous metal helmet by ripping the metal out of Voldemort's blood. Voldemort, by the way, is helpless throughout this, and had previously gone toe to psychic toe with Harry, later casually out-duelled several powerful Warlocks and Wardens, as well as Harry Dresden (flattening the latter in about three seconds after getting serious) and proved in several respects to be much more powerful than his canon counterpart. For Magneto to pull that is no mean feat.
• Going toe-to-toe with Selene, a Physical God in the shape of a gigantic dragon, and holding his own against her.

Tom Riddle/Voldemort

• Going toe-to-toe with Magneto as a young man, which is no small feat.
• When finally shows up in the main story, he gets one hell of an awesome villainous moment: it turns out that he's been using his Psychic Link with Harry to siphon off his powers to restore himself. When Betsy cuts him off, he uses what he's gained to pull Grand Theft Me on Wormtail, regaining a physical form a full year ahead of canon, armed with part of Harry's powers.
• Everything Voldemort does in Chapter 2 of Ghosts is horrifying, but it demonstrates just how powerful he's become. And it's a mild case of The Bad Guy Wins, as he's able to just walk away afterwards, having gathered everything he needed.
• It's implied throughout Bloody Hell that Donald Morgan went up against Voldemort before. While this would've been before Voldemort got some of Harry's power and his training from Selene, this is still incredibly impressive and would've been one heck of an Offscreen Moment of Awesome for both - after all, the only three mortal wizards known to have faced Voldemort one on one and survived are Dumbledore^note  The Archmage of the wanded Wizarding world, Strange^note  the millennia-old Sorcerer Supreme, and Wanda (and in Wanda's case, when she was younger, that was only barely). Meanwhile, Morgan has over a century's experience fighting Warlocks, meaning that it would've been no small feat for Voldemort to match him, either.
• In Spite of a Nail, Voldemort still manages to slip Harry's name into the Goblet of Fire, under the noses of Dumbledore and all his staff, Bucky, and the MI13 squad, especially impressive since he probably doesn't have anyone on staff this time around. Bucky theorizes that it was done before the Cup reached Hogwarts, which is somewhat less impressive, but still not something to be sneezed at.
• A sign of how powerful Voldemort has become — Magneto rips out roughly half the blood in his body piece by piece, then Dresden puts three bullets in his head. It doesn't stop him.
• Killing Grevane and Corpsetaker, two powerful necromancers, with practically no effort. He also takes on three junior Wardens, killing one and debilitating two when he gets bored.
• Harry Dresden is a highly experienced and very powerful wizard whose mentors include an experienced Warden who put him through Training from Hell, Ebenezar McCoy, and Wanda Maximoff. When they go toe-to-toe, Dresden explicitly states that Voldemort was just toying with him - and that despite the fact that Dresden was backed up by Carlos Ramirez, a powerful Warden, and Voldemort was simultaneously rifling through his head, bypassing psychic defences that had slowed and discomforted Corpsetaker, a mental magic specialist, without Dresden even noticing. The moment Voldemort gets serious, he nearly kills Dresden in three seconds flat.
• Telepathically manipulating Ron, and thereby Hermione, via blood magic into entering the Fallen Fortress, using that as a distraction to raid the Ministry of Magic and Department of Mysteries.

Other Villains

• One by the Disir in retrospect. They mowed through Asgardian armies and it took Bor himself to banish them, and he did that because that was all he could manage: he wasn't able to kill them. When they got free after about five or six thousand years of imprisonment, they manage to come up with what would be a plan to extort a tribute from Asgard, get revenge on Bor's descendants and make their unlives more comfortable in a matter of minutes. It would have worked too, if they had been more up to date on magic, Midgard and Harry wasn't such a Spanner in the Works.
  • And one for Gravemoss for utterly flattening them and subduing them, utterly shattering any image of his being a Squishy Wizard.
  • And later for Strange, who, in an Offscreen Moment of Awesome, made his displeasure at their antics known by capturing them, restoring their consciences, and locking them in a crystal ball to be haunted by the spectres of their victims for as long as he pleases.
• Gravemoss' assault on MI6 in a Nightmare Fuel sort of way.
  • He also went toe to toe with both Loki and Doctor Strange and survived to tell the tale - though Strange's later flattening of him at the Battle of London and his careful manipulations leave open the question of whether he let Gravemoss get away.
• Baron Zemo utterly curbstomping Fenrir Greyback after the latter objects to being placed under HYDRA command in about three blows and as many seconds, before delivering a succinct "Reason You Suck" Speech.
  Zer reason ve command you is because we are better than you.
• Lucius and Von Strucker trading threats.
• Lucius proving that he earned his Magnificent Bastard status by drugging Von Strucker, forcing him to give up the secret of controlling the Winter Soldier, then executing him. After that, he summons the Conclave, the leadership of HYDRA, walks in with the Winter Soldier in tow and informs them that Baron Von Strucker died of 'mysterious circumstances'. After a HYDRA member sees through this transparent lie and demands the Soldier shoot Lucius, the Soldier shoots him instead, at which point Lucius casually informs the Conclave that Mysterious Circumstances can be catching. Needless to say, they all fall into line. This move gives him full control of HYDRA and its resources, to go with the financial resources of the Death Eaters unwise enough to join him and, when they went into hiding, give him power of attorney, and, of course, control of the Winter Soldier.
• Gravemoss cutting off the Genius Loci in the Rockies isn't anywhere near his most impressive accomplishment, but considering how powerful it must have been to fully empower Harry and co, that's still pretty awesome.
• Alexander Pierce gets a few moments over the course of several chapters — he's Affably Evil enough to fool even the Properly Paranoid Harry and Freki and Geri into trusting him; is able to casually manipulate Harry into having a panic attack that triggers a minor display of his powers sufficient to gain data on them for HYDRA, doing so in such a way that while Dumbledore and Sean pick up on it, they can't call him out on it; and then strolls into HYDRA's headquarters, something Lucius inwardly observes is impossible (and with the reveal that said HQ is in a Pocket Dimension, that just racks up Pierce's awesome).
  • In chapter 77 he also successfully plunges the knife into Lucius' back, being the only person other than Strange to actually get the better of Lucius. He even implies, though it's not confirmed, that he actually did know about the Shadow Initiative, or at least suspected its existence, and let it go ahead in order to take out Lucius and strengthen his own position. If it hadn't been for Fury intercepting and decrypting Lucius' phone call, it would've worked like a charm.
• Chapter 70 is the story's Darkest Hour, and thus full of the villains being awesome:
  • Lucius walks into the Ministry of Magic and addresses the heads of all its departments, and proceeds to give Fudge a "The Reason You Suck" Speech about how he was so easily played over the years both by Dumbledore and Lucius himself. And when the Ministry refuses his Join or Die offer, he proceeds to reveal that they can't arrest him, since he didn't come in person, instead sending an LMD which then self-destructs, killing most of them.
  • Gravemoss walking up to Azkaban, bending the Dementors to his will without any effort, freeing all of the prisoners, and easily forcing them into line by killing Bellatrix Lestrange, transforming her soul into his spectral servant, along with any other Voldemort die-hards who refuse to serve Lucius.
  • Baron Zemo managing to kill King T'Chaka, a Black Panther, in single combat and then curbstomp T'Challa, making his escape with a large amount of Wakanda's vibranium.
    • One for the Red Room: During the strike on global intelligence and supernatural services, HYDRA sent teams to three of their bases. Not a single HYDRA agent ever returned.
  • Daken going toe-to-toe with an enraged Harry and (momentarily) killing him - and that after having manipulated him into attacking head-on in the first place.
• Chapter 74 has HYDRA top themselves by enacting a plan that results in Avengers Tower destroyed, Thor comatose, Loki reduced to an Oracular Head, and Steve, Bruce and Tony captured. Afterwards, Lucius figures that they're now in a position to dictate terms to both the United Nations and the supernatural community, intending to play the various factions against each other until there's no one left strong enough to defy HYDRA. If it wasn't for Fury's Shadow Initiative, Strange's master plan and Lucius resting on his laurels, it might well have worked, too.
  • Lucius also puts a plan in place to neutralize Magneto, by setting up HYDRA as Lorna Dane's benefactors — aside from the Shame If Something Happened aspect, if Magneto interferes, Lorna will see him as the villain, and if he doesn't, HYDRA is in place to one day recruit her, gaining at least an Alpha, if not an Omega, class mutant. It ultimately doesn't work, as everything's falling apart when Magneto finally attacks, but Zola and Zemo are both impressed.
    • Keep in mind that in Chapter 74 he managed to successfully, even if temporarily, incapacitate The Avengers and basically give the entire world a Join or Die offer. Adaptational Badass doesn't even begin to describe him.
• Zemo once again proves to be more than a match for T'Challa in chapter 75, with Wolverine explicitly stating that Zemo was playing with him.
• In Chapter 77, Chthon finally takes over Gravemoss. The initial effects are shown everywhere in the world, causing a series of accidents that steadily domino. His mere entrance into the world is described as making the realm tremble.
• When Sinister makes his first proper appearance in Chapter 7 of Ghosts of the Past, he quickly establishes himself as a Magnificent Bastard. Not only does he make it clear that he doesn't fear his associates in the Red Room at all, but he subtly sticks a thought in Harry's mind to revisit his former home (although that could've been Maddie), where Sinister "bumps into" him, in his civilian disguise of Doctor Milbury. Using this, he gets Harry and Carol alone, beats down Carol with a single punch and has Maddie Pryor psychically knock Harry out.
  • He managed to outgambit Stephen Strange, when he kidnapped the newborn Rachel Grey and Strange was only able to prevent him from taking Jean too. Even with his being shielded from Strange's foresight, the fact that he escaped Strange's notice over the next sixteen years is very impressive. Considering Strange's usual mastery of just about any and every situation and habit of being ten steps ahead of everyone else, villain or not, you have to respect the guy for this.
• Yelena Belova manages to sneak up on and strike her predecessor in the head. That's right: She got the drop on Natasha. Of course, it ends up being pretty much her only moment of awesome, but one has to respect her for that. Natasha's not exactly an easy person to sneak up on.
• Lukin starts to take over Russia and its environs by using Red Son's psychic abilities to make the leaders bend to his will. It's much more subtle than HYDRA's attempt, much more terrifying, and much, much more effective.
• Doom defeats several of the Lords Lieutenant in a mystical battle, complete with cheesy Bond One-Liner:
  "They failed to rest in peace. Let them rest in pieces."
  • Doom is also reckoned by Strange as the most powerful mortal sorcerer alive after the Scarlet Witch. Given that (unless he's older than he looks) he's only got a few decades worth of magical training at most, compared to the few centuries' worth of the Senior Council, that is very impressive.
• Syrus, a Grey Court Master Vampire, goes hand-to-hand with first a Harry-powered Carol, then Harry's astral form, and even though he loses, puts up a decent fight - hell, he actually wins the hand-to-hand part of the fight, and his strategy for disrupting Harry's astral form is, as Harry admits, one that would work. He'd have won the fight if it wasn't for the fact that he let Harry in arm's reach.
• Dracula's predecessor as King of the Grey Court, Varnae, went up against Thor, Odin, Bor, and Buri, the latter three while they were still Princes of Asgard. All of the battles were inconclusive. Considering the badassery Thor and Odin have already shown (and the fact that Buri was a Time Master), that is pretty impressive.
• Selene's reaction when confronted to Dresden's polka-powered zombie T-Rex? She shapeshifts into a bonafide DRAGON and fights, then eats, Sue. Yup, it bears repeating, she ATE SUE.
• One for the Elder Wyrm: It takes on Thor and the Valiant simultaneously, including receiving sixty car-sized wounds from the Valiant's Nexus Bombs before taking a nasty wound to one eye from a descending Harry. Even then, it's still in good enough shape to simultaneously animate several dozen powerful constructs and take on Harry in an epic battle in the centre of the Earth, and then in the heavens.
• Apocalypse is introduced via hints and then eventually in the sequel with a full abridged biography of his history. It is... impressive.
  • He started out as a magically talented mutant child of tribe in Stone Age Egypt, c. 6000 BC (in other words, he's so ancient that Egypt was a savannah when he was born), before being handpicked by a young-ish Strange as his apprentice and first candidate as an ultimate weapon against Thanos. He did that by ending up in a fight with Apocalypse's tribe, three of whom he killed effortlessly with a longsword, and the rest he casually pinned. Young Apocalypse? Managed to break free and charged Strange. While this was less than effectual, the gumption impressed Strange.
  • Strange trained him into an incredibly powerful mage-warrior, one capable of, with Strange and an army at his back, outfighting Kang the Conqueror and forcing him into retreat. Even more impressively, when he turned on Strange after his lust for power got ahead of him, he didn't just fight him - he nearly beat him. He was explicitly more powerful, and only Strange's skill and experience managed to let him make a fighting retreat.
  • He then successfully fought a decades long war, expanding his empire to cover much of Africa and Eurasia, reaching most of the world, against Strange. Not only does not getting outmanoeuvred and defeated in humiliating fashion underline his smarts, but he took several levels in badass to become a Physical God capable of killing the Queens of Summer and Winter, who it should be noted are on Thor/Loki power-levels at their very weakest. He was also apparently taking on pantheons and the Eternals.
  • Eventually, it took Strange rallying a Dream Team of prehistoric Avengers including Nabu/Fate, a Ghost Rider, an Iron Fist, Black Adam, the Fist of Khonshu, and a Black Panther, all to spearhead armies of mortals and literal gods to take him down after a brutal war, one which also dragged in the Eternals. Oh, and in the process, Apocalypse was the one to create the Black Court from the Grey Court, using them to scourge his own people and act as living (unliving) weapons.
  • And even then, after he was defeated and Strange turned the Eye of Ages against him, trapping his spirit inside his rotting corpse, burying Akkaba and effectively removing him from history, he's still a player. He's implied to be the Man Behind the Man for Sinister (or at the very least, the two had an encounter), and it's stated that his descendants could summon him in dire need (explained by Word of God as being temporary escapes, using one of his descendants as a host, before being snapped back to his tomb).
• Remember the mention of Wanda pulling a Colony Drop on Nicodemus? According to Clint, Nic's only reaction to this was to be upset that it wrecked his suit.

Others

• Odin's descriptions of the last Frost Giant War make it sound pretty damn cool.
  • Prospero Slytherin wielding what is heavily implied to be a conduit to the Phoenix Force and taking down an entire Frost Giant army to protect a refugee column in an epic Heroic Sacrifice/You Shall Not Pass! moment so powerful that it retroactively carves out the Grand Canyon. Made even more awesome by implications that he's not dead.
  • Athelstan Gryffindor, a mortal wizard, taking on Laufey in a duel and scarring him, losing his hand in the process, something that carries shades of Fingolfin versus Morgoth, flavoured with Maedhros. And unlike Fingolfin, Athelstan survived.
    • He also wielded Mjolnir, presumably with one hand. Handicapped Badass indeed.
  • Branwen Hufflepuff's Roaring Rampage of Revenge, one so terrifying that even Odin was stunned by it, and over 1500 years on, Frost Giants en masse are terrified of magic.
  • The legendary Lady Knight wielding her own sword and the Sword of Gryffindor in battle, cutting a hand off of Byleistr (specifically called 'the Loki of his day' in respect to magical power) in a one on one duel, and taking on Sif and Fandral as Squires.
• Chapter 44 is a long series of awesome moments.
  • For Doctor Strange, impossibility is something that happens to other people.
    • For context, he resurrected Sif (though she was Only Mostly Dead, apparently) and Harry Dresden (who was Deader than Dead).
  • Archangel's entrance - pouncing on an undead dragon from above, then beheading it with a single scissor slash of his wings, before moving on to the others.
  • Hell, the very idea of Rhodey, Archangel and a bunch of jets dogfighting with zombie dragons is just plain cool.
  • Rhodey finds himself out of ammo, with one undead dragon left, armed only with repulsors that won't pierce the dragon's hide, and it's bearing down on Luton airport. What does he do? Grab the jet that was downed earlier, using it on the dragon like a lance at mach speed, lodging it in, then using his repulsors to blow the jet and the dragon up. Jessica Drew notes several months later that most of MI13 is still referring to him as 'Saint George' for this stunt.
• Chapter 49 implies that Krypton and the Nova Corps, Marvel's cosmic cops (the Green Lantern Corps have been confirmed not to exist), went to war around 1000 years ago. Certainly, whatever happened, Odin was forced to intervene.
• It's not dwelt on, but as Tony notes, his own father was never able, even with all of his money, resources, and ingenuity, to build a flying car. Arthur Weasley, whose knowledge of physics and Muggle engineering is mostly self-taught, was able to do so in a shed! With a box of scraps!
• It's heavily implied that Strange's predecessor, Yao the Ancient One, managed to last centuries as Sorcerer Supreme. Given that most don't even manage a decade, that's no small feat.
• In Chapter 59, Bobby Drake (with a little help) manages to hide himself, using his powers, from the Winter Soldier and the assorted bad guys bearing down on him, and Harry, Carol, Jean-Paul, Uhtred and Diana manage to hide with him. Bobby and Diana then manage to convince the spirit of the mountain to "power them up" for long enough to get away. The result makes The Winter Soldier think Wow, we're screwed before he even has to face any of them.
• In Chapter 60, Pepper has no problem in ordering the Winter Soldier around. And he complies. Busted programming or not, that's incredibly impressive.
• In Chapter 64, M gives Petunia Dursley a scathing "The Reason You Suck" Speech over her treatment of Harry.
• The following chapter has Dumbledore imply that Alan Scott was worth an entire superhero team by himself. It's a statement that Sean Cassidy doesn't deny, and that, combined with Magneto's Villain Respect, speaks volumes about just how dangerous that man must have been.
  • Later on, it's revealed that in the 1980s, Scott and Magneto got into a particularly brutal brawl. The end result? Scott put him in the ICU. For what sounds like an extended period, enough for Magneto to have a My God, What Have I Done? moment (and, naturally, to plan his escape).
• In Chapter 68, Betsy uses her psychic training of Harry to locate and isolate the fragment of Voldemort in Harry, and then cut the link between them.
• The entire country of Wakanda gets an Offscreen Moment of Awesome, when Hermione recites a story from World War II — Italy tried to conquer the country, only for their entire army to disappear, followed by Mussolini waking up one morning to find the commanding general's head on the pillow next to him.
• Thomas Raith takes apart a N'Garai in a matter of seconds in Chaos Reigns after making a sixty foot leap to pin it down.
• Bruce Wayne, the future Batman, also gets in on the action during Chaos Reigns, as he grabs the Tumbler and drives it to the battle, where he rams it into the already-wounded Mabdhara, before setting off explosive charges, ripping the demon in half. This is what provides Dresden with the opening needed to finish it off.
• While Chapter 70 is HYDRA's big move, and mostly their success story, there are a few Curb Stomp Cushion moments:
  • The first HYDRA troopers to get into Hogwarts being cut down by a statue controlled by McGonagall, who even gets a Bond One-Liner:
    "Welcome to Scotland."
  • Sharon Carter/Agent 13, who had been posing as the British Prime Minister's secretary, getting him to safety when HYDRA attempts to assassinate the entire British government. In the process, she fights off Jason Todd — in this verse, Baron Zemo's protégé — and sends him packing.
  • Arthur Weasley, of all people, being the voice of the heroic and rational members of the Ministry of Magic, first calling out Fudge and his sycophants for ignoring the truth about Lucius Malfoy and HYDRA, and then telling Lucius exactly what to do with his Join or Die offer.
    "Go fuck yourself, Lucius."
    • Later, he (who, it should be remembered, is most certainly not a trained or experienced combatant) performs an epic Hold the Line moment, with it being mentioned that he had at least ten HYDRA agents lying dead around him, and had injured at least that many again before finally being taken down.
  • Tonks, at this point a brand-new Auror, gets credit for not flinching from the Winter Soldier, even though she's been disarmed and he's coming right at her.
• Chapter 71 continues the all around awesome:
  • The Phoenix resurrects Harry after Daken kills him, then possesses him and proceeds to immolate Daken in return, before then wiping out the entire HYDRA assault team in Hogwarts, including a small army of Dementors like they aren't even there. And this relatively low-key manifestation sets a ripple going across the world, causing both Gravemoss and the Darkhold to have an Oh, Crap! reaction to sensing Her presence.
  • Rhodey realises that the griffon he's fighting is another victim of HYDRA, and when its handlers kill it for breaking free of their control, snaps into an Unstoppable Rage and demonstrates just how dangerous an Iron Man armour in the hands of someone who knows to use it really is. And then managing to hold the Helicarrier up in the air long enough to prevent it from crashing completely.
  • Namor makes his first appearance, relieving and completing an exhausted Rhodey's attempt to safely land the crippled Helicarrier.
  • Wolverine showing up to stop the Winter Soldier from assassinating President Ellis, and fighting him well enough that the Soldier has to resort to using an RPG in order to win. Hell, his mere presence is enough to cause the Soldier to have an Oh, Crap! moment.
  • President Ellis himself reveals that he has big brass balls, as when confronted by the Soldier, he decides to Face Death with Dignity. And upon recognising the Soldier as Bucky Barnes, manages to get through to him, helping him break free of the remainder of his Red Room conditioning. This saves the President's life.
• Chapter 75:
  • Wolverine goes toe-to-toe with the Winter Soldier once again. Despite the fact that this time the Soldier doesn't have broken ribs, they're implied to be pretty evenly matched.
  • Jane Foster, with the help of Hank Pym, Susan Storm, Reed Richards, Erik Selvig and several others, manages to locate (they knew the location on Earth it was tied to, but not much beyond that) and force HYDRA's base from the subdimension they are hiding in in only a few hours.
    • On an intellectual level, the fact that two of the aforementioned "several others", that Jane ends up thinking of as minions thanks to Tony Stark, are Major Samantha Carter and Rodney McKay. The outright smartest humans in two galaxies in their own continuity, and there's enough collected brainpower on the project that they're low enough on the scale to barely get mentioned by name.
  • HYDRA aren't the only one that can call giant sea serpents in. And there's one person riding it to crash into HYDRA's base:
    IMPERIUS REX!
    • T'Challa's section reveals that Namor's gone a step further and unleashed dozens of Lindorms, small (relatively) sea dragons, on the HYDRA base. A very dark form of Hilarity Ensues.
      Sean: *as a Lindorm chases a screaming HYDRA trooper* Someone's no' been feedin' those things.
  • Hermione and the Weasley Twins - with some intellectual support from Doctor Strange - manage to put Loki together with just one ritual.
  • Although he's most likely joking (at least somewhat), even Doctor Strange is wary of the wrath of Mama Bear Molly Weasley.
  • Jean Grey volunteers to undertake a mission which she knows will be incredibly dangerous. She manages to reach Yggdrasil on her own, with Cerebro, when she's never even used it before. And, with a helping hand from Huginn and Muninn - who state that they just made it quicker and easier - she can project her astral body all the way to Asgard!
    • And in chapter 76, she singlehandedly breaks the enchantment on Thor. Not bad for your first time out.
    • For reference, Xavier—the most powerful mortal psychic up to this point—requires a serious effort and Cerebro simply to project an image of himself to speak with Odin in Asgard. Jean, who is far less experienced, was able to break Gravemoss' enchantment from another dimension. Without breaking much of a sweat, even.
  • Xavier gets another moment of awesome in retrospect for threatening Strange, when it becomes clear later on a) just how powerful and dangerous Strange is, and b) how little patience he has for anyone threatening him.
• In Chapter 77:
  • Hercules (Diana's father) appears in all his glory, completely destroying a N'Garai in one punch, liquefying several others with a Shockwave Clap, making the time to hug and congratulate his daughter and then throwing himself into a fight against several augmented humans.
  • JARVIS' second fight against Arnim Zola. As he delightfully states, he was created with the capacity to learn, which he proceeds to demonstrate by attacking it a million times per second with an attack similar to what Hogwarts used, forcing Zola to back off.
  • Dumbledore and the other Hogwarts teachers saving some people that had, for some reason, remained behind in London, and then protecting them from a HYDRA quinjets' attack. Hagrid even plants himself as a Human Shield in front of the people. And then Captain Mar-Vell destroying the quinjets just as the teachers begin to run out of power.
  • Jason Todd, once Zemo's right hand, does a Heel–Face Turn at the behest of Stephen Strange thanks to one of his specialised Wham Lines specifically, "Faith can be something someone has in you," and temporarily becomes Sir Jason, wielder of the Sword of Faith!
  • Sirius fighting off Bellatrix Lestrange's spectral form.
  • Remus almost killing Greyback. If it were not for Gravemoss' powers giving Greyback a new, stronger form, one previously capable of (briefly) going toe to toe with an aged up Harry, he would have managed to do it, too.
  • The X-Men (including young Bobby Drake, determined not to let anyone get hurt protecting him) fighting the demons attacking the X-Mansion, while Charles Xavier prevents them from attacking nearby Bayville. And then Jean crushes all the demons (about ten thousand) in one go. All it does, after all she's already done, is tire her out.
  • Until now, Magneto had been a mere figure in the background, feared by hero and villain alike. Here, he finally proves how incredibly powerful he is, by causing a giant geomagnetic storm that plays haywire with all communications as a mere side effect of his entrance and crushing the previously utterly impervious Vibranium-fitted Dreadnought.
  • Odin Allfather comes forth, with Huginn and Muninn and a large Asgardian army next to him, ready to battle Chthon himself. It's noted that under normal conditions, their battle would have destroyed the entire galaxy.
• Chapter 78:
  • The arrival of the Heroes of Tomorrow, the Champions of the Days to Come, to the world in flux, stopping the many natural disasters caused by Chthon, saving the day elsewhere a thousand times.
    • And the first of those heroes? 'A red and blue blur... leaving behind it the crack of an immense sonic boom.' To erase any remaining doubts about his identity, this riff follows.
      Steve: Is it a bird?
      Clint: Is it a plane?
      Strange: Spoilers.
  • In the background, thanks to the collapse in the walls of reality all sorts of things leak through: for but two examples, a blue police box is noted spinning through the sky and giant suits of Powered Armour are mentioned fighting giant monsters. Gipsy Danger, anyone?
  • Odin using his son's catchphrase as he slams Chthon headfirst into the ground.
    Odin: I. Say. Thee. Nay.
  • Jane organises her lab (and her many minions) with great efficiency, and then organises everyone's evacuation when a chaotic portal opens right in the lab while she (with Sue Storm's, Reed Richards' and Darcy's help) tries to close it. And then knowing when to fold them by forcing Sue and Reed to leave and later getting herself and Darcy out with her transporter.
  • One person, only one person, can give Harry the last push to ensure he punts Chthon out of reality: Lily Evans Potter, who willingly became the Phoenix's permanent vessel, the White Phoenix of the Crown, to save her son. If that's not awesome, what is?
• In Chapter 79, Lily gives a casual demonstration of her power by instantly teleporting everyone who fought against HYDRA and Chthon in London to Asgard for the post-battle feast with a Badass Fingersnap. As Carol puts it to Harry...
  Carol: Dude. Your mom has got moves.
• Although "the Welshman" has yet to appear onscreen, it's stated that Dracula doesn't want to come to Britain because they had a clash that didn't end well for either. Given all of the power and skill shown above, the fact that this vampire can match the King of the Grey Court in open combat says a lot.
  • Also, Voldemort started avoiding that part of the country after the Welshman ate one of his giants.
• In Ghosts of the Past chapter 9, Jean Grey uses raw psychic power to rip a hole into the Nevernever and accurately locate her cousin. It should be noted that point-to-point Nevernever gates are usually done by beings on the level of literal Faerie Queens, such as Mab and Titania.
• Russian President Volodya (a.k.a. President Totally-Not-Putin) tears Lukin a new arsehole for pissing off Asgard via kidnapping the son of its Crown Prince, and when he understands he's going to be killed by the Red Son, he merely insults Lukin further and says he will enjoy seeing the Avengers kick his arse from Heaven.
• Asgard's answer to the kidnapping of its Crown Prince's son is literally divine wrath-stuff: they outright bring Russia to its knees by destroying their food and energy resources. And Frigga intends to go further by attacking the water supplies too, unless her grandson comes home safe and sound. Beware the Asgardian Mama Bear, even more when she rules over a nation which she can and will order to bring your head back to her.
• When Mab visits Avengers Mansion, Jane Foster-who a) is a Muggle and not even a Badass Normal, and b) knows who and just how dangerous Mab is-steps between the Queen of Air and Darkness and Pepper and her baby. Harry Dresden's inner monologue remarks on this, and how impressive it is - and considering his history with Mab, he would know.
• Pepper sees through Mab's Exact Words to figure out that Dresden doesn't need to take the Winter Knight mantle to rescue (other) Harry.
• Huginn calling out the Council Elite on how, technically speaking, any of them is more of a threat to the Earth than Harry is, so they all have no ground to stand on.
  • The fact that he and Muninn are entirely willing to come with Odin to the meeting and have his back, despite knowing that they may well not come back either, deserves mention.
• Nagraj Shah, a prisoner of the Red Room, was actually able to escape their clutches and hide away with Gorakhnath, which has got to be an awesome moment considering how good their security is.
• The previous Dark Phoenix, Surtur, was so powerful that pretty much every other advanced species-Aesir, Vanir, Alfar, Jotnar, Dvergar, even the Eternals and Deviants-joined together to stop him, and they still weren't enough to fight him directly and win. Their solution? Craft Ván, the Sword of Hope, from uru and vibranium, and give it layers of enchantment, enough to No-Sell Phoenix fire. It even became sentient, and it was used by Frey, the ancestor of the Asgardian royal line, to fight Surtur long enough for the rest of his alliance to lock him up. And that prison? None other than Yggdrasil itself.
  • Oh, and it turns out that the Odinforce is actually empowered further by the resonance of including Muspelheim in the Nine Realms, and further still by the remnants of Surtur's own power, used to strengthen his prison and empower its Warden.
• Xavier gives Essex an absolutely savage "The Reason You Suck" Speech, informing him that even if Lily hadn't removed the mental conditioning in Maddie's mind, she still would've broken free because of two things which, despite having been observing humanity for centuries, if not millennia, he still doesn't understand: free will, and compassion. So long as she was more than just a vegetable, she'd be able to think, to imagine, to choose, that would always be the Spanner in the Works. And once she got the feel for compassion, was shown it and began to show it in turn, Essex's conditioning would never be able to get a solid hold again. It's enough to completely unnerve Essex, especially as when he tries to dismiss as 'mere sentiment', Xavier points out that yes, it is sentiment... and it beat him. Xavier then follows it up by telling him that, if the latter doesn't cooperate, Xavier knows every trick in his book, and then some, and that if he doesn't cooperate, Xavier will Mind Rape him to get the information he wants. To use his exact words, "I will peel your mind like an orange."
  • To put it in perspective, this makes Xavier the only character apart from Strange and Maddie to crack his shell and make him show any emotion other than annoyance or curiosity. In Strange's case, he's The Dreaded for a large number of very good reasons and Sinister thought he was safe (and had been for a long time), and in Maddie's, she'd done the apparently impossible and broken his conditioning completely - both fairly earth-shaking events. Considering that, and the fact that he's faced down Wanda and the Dark Phoenix, with both out for his blood, and that Xavier did it with just words... that's impressive.
• A minor but still respectable moment for Karkaroff, who is, as far as we know, the only person other than Constantine to figure out Peter Wisdom's true identity, based on nothing more than a single close look, from a short distance away, when it's dark out. A jerk he may be, but a moron he is not.
• Peter Parker, half-turned by the Grey Court, goes hand-to-hand with two older, more powerful vampires, roughly strong enough to match Diana in Super-Strength, and holds his own. While gabbling away, naturally.
• While it's significantly less impressive than in canon, since he had Magneto for backup, the fact that Butters, a completely untrained and inexperienced Muggle, is still willing to go into danger and help Harry Dresden against a very powerful and deranged warlock is pretty impressive.
• Lupin, Sirius, Logan, and Gambit all take out several Grey Court Vampires of their own, despite the fact that the former two are Squishy Wizards.
• It's heavily implied that Loki's had an unpleasant run-in with Mother Winter, with him getting the worst of the deal. Whatever happened, it must've been pretty awesome.
• A more subdued one, but in chapter 38, Neville at one point snaps at and stands up to Harry, who'd been Innocently Insensitive. As Harry inwardly notes, Neville's smaller than Harry, significantly weaker, and phenomenally accident prone, while Harry is The Dreaded, being well known as a high-end Person of Mass Destruction with a Hair-Trigger Temper and a creatively nasty streak. Needless to say, Neville squaring up to him is impressive as hell, which Harry recognizes and respects.
• Cedric gets one in chapter 42 of Ghosts, when he resists the enhanced second attempt by the barrow wights to enchant him, essentially snuff out his will to live, through sheer force of will. At the very least, Harry is impressed, and uses it as the basis for his "The Reason You Suck" Speech against the wights.
• It's revealed that MI13 worked with Wakanda to improve the vibranium armour that had been part of HYDRA's Dreadnought, so that the Valiant can not only deflect energy, but also absorb and redirect it. This feature is then used to pour the energy from the Elder Wyrm's attacks into the Hogwarts Lake, and the energy-infused water is used by Strange, Wanda, and Dumbledore to form magical chains to bind and constrict the Elder Wyrm, bringing it down and making it easy prey for Harry.
• Ebenezar McCoy, though mostly a side character, gets a few moments of his own:
  • He's mentioned as having worked with Wanda Maximoff before in an Offscreen Moment of Awesome.
  • He also earns respect from Dumbledore and from Strange (who, it should be remembered, is not only millennia old, but also generally hostile to both the Senior Council and the White Council as a whole) for his book covering the basics of wandless magic.
  • Despite Dresden's irritation with him in particular and the Senior Council in general, it's notable that Dresden always refers to him as "sir," with more respect than he shows to anyone short of Physical God level (for that matter, some Physical Gods don't get that level of deference).
  • During the Dungeons and Dragons arc, he counters the effects of the Elder Wyrm's Earth magic with his own.
• Dream gets in on the Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the Red Room, trapping many members in their worst nightmares. It's later revealed that he did worse to Belova (and, it's implied, to Lukin as well) — her nightmares were specifically designed to break down all her self-delusions and force her to face what she really is. As a side effect of this, she's physically warped into something described as "Gollum's uglier sister" and driven completely insane.
• Past-seeing lets Harry witness the fight between Bor Burison and Malekith. As Harry grudgingly concedes, while he was a spectacular asshole, Bor definitely qualified for Asskicking Leads to Leadership - not only did he go toe to toe with a very powerful Magic Knight wielding an Infinity Stone (albeit one that didn't seem to be working properly), he won. More than that, his duel with the Dark Elf laid waste to the planet they were on, enough so that it's still a ruin roughly 6,000 years later (which, admittedly, is a snap in geological terms).
  • It's also worth noting that Bor didn't have millennia of experience at this point, either; he was roughly the same age Thor is now. With that in mind, his victory is even more impressive.
• Chloe Sullivan. Cute blonde Ordinary High-School Student, School Newspaper News Hound with a meteor mutant fixation, and apparently very little beyond that. Sure, she's a capable hacker, but that doesn't mean that she can keep her cool under pressure enough to sneak into the Arc Villain's office, perform a quick and efficient search that produces useful intelligence, skim their journal and have the presence of mind to rip out the notes, before replacing the notebook, and hide them ahem, on her person, and keep this secret in the face of a powerful and insane dark wizard with a Voodoo Doll and a gift for Sympathetic Magic who'll indulge in Cold-Blooded Torture (including Electric Torture) just because he feels like it... can she? As it turns out, yes, she can, and she'll have that vital intelligence to give Harry. Oh, and for Clark's sake, she's also willing to undergo the trauma of reliving the memory so Harry (via touch-based telepathy) can get the maximum information in the minimum time. There is a reason that Harry, who is not easily impressed, says after all of this:
  Harry: Chloe Sullivan, you're a bloody marvel.
• When they're trapped in the Fallen Fortress, Harry, Ron, and Hermione are all confronted with nightmares and reflections of their traumas that - at the very least - severely shake them. Yes, even Harry, who managed to get the upper hand eventually. Sirius, on the other hand? He's not even fazed. At the very worst, he's a little stressed out, but no more. As he points out, he spent twelve years undergoing something not so different in Azkaban. After realising just what this means, Harry is left with significantly greater respect for his godfather.
• When Ron bursts onto the ship and wakes up Krum in the middle of the night, he doesn't even blink, just grabs robes, wand, and broom, and flies to where Ron points without even asking for any details, before saving Ron's life from a collateral blast as Possessed!Hermione and Harry go toe to toe.
  • Krum's flying ability, as per canon, is highly impressive—Harry, Diana, and Thor himself all remark on how good he is in the air.
• When Karkaroff tries to blame Hermione and her chaos magic for what happened in the Fallen Fortress, Krum stands up to him and makes it clear that he expects his professor to heed Dumbledore's demand for a formal apology from him to Hermione. This is particularly impressive given that Karkaroff is not exactly the kind of authority figure who encourages his students to stand up to him.
• During the climax of Unfinished Business, Monica manages to use her energy manipulation powers to undo Nimue's tree transformation spell on Carol.
• After Wanda confirmed him still being alive several chapters ago in Ghosts of the Past, guess who appears during the climax of Unfinished Business to help out against Nimue? That's right, Merlin himself.
  • A subtle but impressive thing about Merlin's entrance — Carol has stopped time outside of the bubble she's summoned all the allied heroes into. Merlin was not one of those people. Yet he's still there, implying that time stopping had no effect on him.
  • Merlin chastises Strange for creeping out everyone by discussing what he's been doing to Nimue in their fight. Strange responds with a Death Glare that's noted to have cowed gods and archdemons... and Merlin shrugs it off, staring Strange down until Strange acquiesces. Then he does it again in the following chapter.
  • In his long-awaited rematch with Nimue, she hits him with enough power to wipe out gods. All he suffers is a cut cheek. In fact, for most of the fight, he barely shows any sign of strain. And even when she starts really pushing him, he's still able not only to withstand her, but keep trying to talk her down as he does so.
• Professor McGonagall is willing to stare down Magneto (knowing full well who he is) in her protectiveness of Hermione.
• Shou-Lao proves himself to be an incredibly effective mentor and counselor for Harry, helping him to work through many of his issues. He also has absolutely no patience for Harry's dramatics, as evidenced by his brief spurt of true anger when Harry starts wangsting about having killed the Red Army.
  "You think that you are the only one who has slain their kin?"
• The following chapter has Harry go all-out against Shou-Lao in a duel, combining his magic, psychic powers, and hand-to-hand attacks in a display Sunniva, an experienced warrior, finds breathtaking. She explicitly notes that he's channelling the kind of power that even a Royal Asgardian shouldn't be able to muster until they're at least 400 - and speculates that he can because he Had to Be Sharp. Shou-Lao? Spends most of the fight diverting and avoiding Harry's attacks, only directly blocking when he's about to send Harry flying with a counter-attack. Harry whips up every binding he can? He breaks them by flexing. Harry flips back through a portal and delivers a psychic knife through his skull backed by all of his vast psychic power? No Sells it, breaks it by biting it, lets the backlash send Harry flying, and lectures him on mistaken assumptions about where he's keeping his brain. He barely has to work up a sweat in order to decisively demonstrate that Harry has no chance. In fact, Sunniva finds it impressive that Harry forced him to actually work for it.
• The Lady Knight finally makes her bow as Lady Maupin or Julie D'Aubigny (one of many, many aliases she's had down the millennia), in The Phoenix and the Serpent, and lives up to her reputation. First, she makes Harry and Hal at a mere glance when acting as The Chanteuse in her club, letting him know with a mere wink that she's onto them. Then, when Harry says that she's the Red Baron of the swordsmanship, he's not kidding - she strolls onto the floor, using seriously powerful nanotechnology to turn it into a duelling floor, nonchalantly shorting out the Scarab's main weapons (tech that's canonically advanced enough to match up to a Green Lantern Ring), while transforming her microphone and stand into a classic rapier with a blade sharp enough to cut atoms, her dress and heels into light battle-armour, and her otherwise human physique into something that can keep up with the speed and reflexes of a Beetle. She doesn't wear a helmet. That doesn't matter.
  • She then proceeds to not just beat it, or even curbstomp it - she absolutely destroys it. This, despite the fact that the same Beetle had a) two blades to her one, b) was comfortable with the idea of taking on both Harry and Hal at once, c) a supercomputer for a battle-computer, d) was emphatically not holding back or testing Harry the way it had been before. The closest it gets to her is shaving the tips off of some her fringe, while she picks apart its defence to the tune of the Pirates of the Caribbean theme, visibly having fun, swoops around behind it, skewers the Scarab and lowers the comms barrier around her club so it can relay one last message to its master: "tell your master [...] the bitch is back."
  • After, she casually teleports Hal and Harry into her office, reveals that she knows a great deal more than she's letting on about both of them, implies that she'd been successfully avoiding all notice - including Heimdall - for over 200 years after she vanished in the late 17th/early 18th century, all but states that she's had a plan for decades to deal with the Grandmaster and she was just waiting for Harry and Sunniva to pull it off, and comfortably leads both of them both around by the nose, giving them tidbits to follow the discussion trail to get to exactly where she wants. Harry, a deft manipulator himself and no slouch at this, recognises a master at work and finds himself an apprentice by comparison, somewhat to his digruntlement.
• Book III reveals that Malekith tried to use the Reality Stone to set Asgard back hundreds of thousands of years' in terms of cultural development. The only reason the effects aren't so apparent are the combined efforts of Doctor Strange and Buri, the latter dropping out of linear time to ameliorate much of the worst of it.
• The circumstances are downright deranged and somewhat nightmarish, but the replication of the Battle of the Heroes is spectacular - especially since Harry is explicitly good enough with a replication of a lightsabre to not only duel Anakin/Vader (as spliced onto Johnny's light-form) to a standstill without faltering in his Obi-Wan disguise, but unlike that duel, he's actually dominating the fight without breaking a real sweat.