Super Strength

You're a mean drunk, Superman.

Likely the most primal super-power. Super Strength doesn't require any long-winded explanations and it's not at all nerdy.

Very common power from The Silver Age of Comic Books. Usually does not know Kung Fu. Usually, this is the linchpin power of a Flying Brick. Characters with a wide variety of Superpowers will very frequently include this as a baseline ability. Characters with super strength may demonstrate it with a Neck Lift. A must for The Big Guy. This is also the most common Charles Atlas Superpower. It's often revealed to other characters via a Bare-Handed Truck Stop.

See also World's Strongest Man and Required Secondary Powers. Villains show this off with a Neck Lift, Minion Maracas, Barrier-Busting Blow, or Hoist Hero Over Head; heroes do it by being a Load-Bearing Hero. Characters with this power may sometimes not know their own strength. They are often described as having The Strength of Ten Men.

Examples of Super Strength include:

Anime and Manga

  • In Ranma ½, most of the martial artists seem to have some level of greater-than-human strength, implicitly because of the fact they practice martial arts. Akane Tendo, generally considered the least skilled of the group, can carry a refrigerator up and down a flight of stairs in her arms, single-handed and at a jogging pace. Mousse, who generally prefers fighting with weapons to bare hands, is capable of splitting a huge temple bell with one punch. Ranma Saotome himself is generally considered Weak but Skilled because he prefers agility and technique to brute force, as opposed to Ryoga Hibiki, who tends to break things around him without meaning to, but is still capable of feats like lifting multiple tons, smashing through solid rock and wood with his bare hands, bending steel and leaping multiple stories.
  • In Naruto, we have a lot of examples.
    • First and foremost is Tsunade, whose trademark ability is her monstrous super strength. She can shatter an entire city block and the walls around it with a single kick, or by just slamming her finger into the ground she could create an entire chasm which she used to trip up Naruto. Orochimaru acknowledged that her strength was one of the few things that could actually kill him if she was at full strength. Her best feat is wielding Gamabunta's Sword and slamming it down on Manda's jaws.
      • She's even stronger than A, and can smash Susano'o on her own!
    • The second example is Tsunade's student, Sakura Haruno. She can now shatter boulders, launch Naruto over 300 meters (over 1000 feet) away with a single punch, and break the highly defensive Hiruko puppet's defense with ease.
    • Third is Naruto Uzumaki himself-he was able to stop a giant snake from hitting Sasuke during the Chunin Exams while tapping into the Fox's chakra. His most triumphant example is during the Pain Invasion, him stopping Pain's 1000 ton, 100 meter long/50 meter tall Rhino by grabbing its horn, and then throwing it high into the sky while in Sage Mode, and even in base, he was able to shatter Preta's now stone body by just flexing his muscles, and later he was able to Kyubi himself, slamming him flat on his back.
    • Fourth is Jiraiya, Naruto's master, he could kill some of Pain's summons in just a few kicks, and in Sage Mode he could punch a 100 meter long summon Ram a significant portion out of a massive skyscraper that was in Ame, and finally, he could blind the insanely durable taijutsu body Human Path with just a single kick.
    • Finally, we have Killer Bee and the Raikage, A, both of which demolished Sasuke in two separate occasions. Killer Bee could wield Zabuza's BFS with one hand and he doubles as being Made of Iron. A smashed through Sasuke's Susano'o on two separate occasions by just strength alone, and his Liger Bomb...causes mass destruction.
    • One of Might Guy's attacks is a punch. A punch strong enough to create an explosion of air pressure that can be felt all over an island.
    • Similarly his student, Lee can smash the earth by running and could uproot casually uproot trees as a 13 year old boy.
  • In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, Teana made the mistake of telling Subaru to put more strength into boosting her up during a wall climbing exercise in the Ground Forces Military Academy. Subaru did... and accidentally threw Teana all the way up to the sky in the process. This was our first clue on Subaru's cyborg nature.
    • In FORCE, most members of the Huckebein family sport some degree of boosted physical strength but so far Fortis is the only one who has done a clear demonstration by crushing a soda can to a little marble with barely an effort.
  • Apparently a standard ability of the vampires in Hellsing. Alucard dual-wields Hand Cannons that are explicitly said to be beyond human ability to lift, while Seras's BFGs keep getting bigger and bigger.
    • This one is demonstrated more brutally on other occasions. During a flashback sequence in Volume 3, Integra's father tells her during a lecture that vampires can rip humans apart, "like wet rags." Alucard, naturally, does exactly that in the same chapter to a SWAT team, including one instance of apparently bitch-slapping a man in half.
  • Strike Witches implies that the characters have Super Strength, what with their ability to carry around huge guns. Gertrude really shows off her strength in episode 12 when she throws an I-beam.
  • The Tower of Druaga has ten-year old Coopa be capable of carrying Utu (who was still in armor) and Melt's rod bag with little difficulty.
    • Some time in Season 2, she was able to pull up the (big and presumably heavy) metal cage she was trapped in, while injured. And at the end of the season, she was able to pull up the entire band of True Companions from a dangling cliff.
  • Dragon Ball fighters tend to always have at least super strength to rely on. Even Mr. Satan, the Fake Ultimate Hero, is shown in the anime to be able to drag multiple buses behind him and break stacks of telephone books. And not just the usual strongman demonstration of ripping them in half (which is in fact quite difficult), he breaks them with a karate chop. And does the same with a large stack of bricks. And his strength, while very impressive among Muggles, is a tiny fraction of what even the weakest fighters in the main cast can do.
    • The Z Senshi's strength is so great they can rip mountains up with their bare hands without even trying, for example. Even young Goten could throw rocks clean through a mountain without even going Super Saiyan.
  • Eclair from Kiddy Grade has super strength as one of her main powers.
  • In Fullmetal Alchemist (manga and Brotherhood, at least), during Scar's first fight with Major Armstrong, he comments that shiny man's strength is "almost superhuman". Granted, it's not exactly super strength, but with muscles like those, along with his alchemy, it could count.
  • Cyborg 009 has Geronimo Jr., a.k.a., Cyborg 005, a massive Native American who has this as his main ability.
  • In Axis Powers Hetalia, America could lift a buffalo as a toddler. He's also seen once dragging UK's car with one hand (and apparently he was walking about with said car for an hour).
    • Also, during the 2010 Bloodbath, someone (Finland, I think) calls America and Russia 'superhuman.'
    • Plus, one anime episode has China punching through a wall with eleven chops, kicking through another one with just one kick and even visibly cracking a third one with just his head before America stops him.
    • Greece is also implied to have this "power". One picture shows him wrestling down Germany seemly without trouble, in a strip he knocks out and carries around France's body like it's nothing, and in the Gakuen Hetalia PSP game he manages to move around several life-size stone statues and not even pant afterwards.
  • Most of the characters in One Piece, even Mooks, have super strength, so much so that it might be a requirement in being a good pirate.
    • Luffy is able to push two buildings apart, Zoro is able to lift a house over his head and throw it at his opponent and Sanji is able to send Elite Mook Kuroobi crashing into a building through several walls with great ease. This isn't even the biggest showing of their strength.
    • Fishmen have super strength as a species-wide ability; the average fishman is ten times stronger than the average human, and when in the water they get even stronger.
  • Ku Fei in Mahou Sensei Negima is essentially the Badass Normal of the main cast yet still one of the top fighters. Even Negi has to resort to buffing himself with dark magic to match her sheer physical strength.
    • Quite a few of the girls in 3-A can enhance their strength with either ki or ki and magic combined, Asuna, Kaede, and Setsuna, for three. And if Ku Fei wasn't doing it in the early books, she certainly advanced to it by the Mahora War arc.
  • In Black Butler, Finny of all people is able to easily lift and toss a large marble statue. He throws it with such force that it becomes A Twinkle in the Sky...before falling at terminal velocity toward Ciel's head.. Due to this super strength, is the only one able AND willing to play with Plu (a giant, demonic dog).
  • While most of the cast seem to be Made of Iron with regards to being physically injured, a few in Soul Eater demonstrate extreme strength. Outside of gods like Shinigami and Kid putting craters in the scenery when not using their Weapons, Black Star has been known to punch holes in walls thanks to his soul wavelength.
  • Standard feature of Youkai in Inuyasha. The titular character, despite being half-human, is in the high side of the curve for Youkai. Not surprising, as his late father was one of the strongest youkai to ever live.
  • Heiwajima Shizuo in Durarara!!. Though he was born with the strength, he initially lacked the Required Secondary Powers and repeatedly broke his bones throwing stuff at people. Shizuo's body toughened up, though, so by the time most of the series take place he routinely chucks vending machines around and swings lampposts without suffering any ill effects.
  • Makoto/Lita, AKA Sailor Jupiter from Sailor Moon possesses great strength even in civilian form. She can pick up and throw man-sized enemies without much strain. All the Sailor Soldiers have enhanced strength in their Sailor forms, but Jupiter is the most powerful physically. Appropriate, given the god she's named after.
  • Ryoko in the Tenchi Muyo worlds often has this ability; one manga episode had her rather crudely performing 'brute force barbecue': heat plus (surprised) cow.
  • Gurren Lagann, Most Mech's have it, but good ol' Gurren Lagann Lifted what was the equivalent of an aircraft carrier with a mountain-city balanced on it at the same time while the aircraft carrier was pushing into the ground.
  • Kagura from Gintama can toss around boulders and cars with ease and stop Gin's scooter by grabbing the back of it, among other things.
  • In Rosario + Vampire, pretty much every monster out there is stronger than a normal human, but most especially the vampires, whose primary power is this.
  • A-ko in Project A-ko has super strength as part of her powers of being the daughter of Wonder Woman and Superman. B-ko gains super strength via her Power Armor.
  • The title character from Kimba the White Lion has this power along with Super Vitality.
  • Fairy Tail's Natsu has this, probably due to his dragon magic. Erza is even stronger than Natsu.
  • Daily Lives of High School Boys
    • Tadakuni's little sister Mei:in High School Boys and Tower she can lift two guys both older and bigger than her on her shoulders, and in High School Boys and UFO Catchers she can shake a UFO Catcher at the arcade which the main trio together couldn't even move.

Tadakuni, Hidenori and Yoshitake, in unison: "Just what IS she?"

    • Habara shows signs of this in the unanimated skits. Remember, she was an Enfant Terrible-level bully when she was an elementary schooler.
      • In High School Girls are Funky -- Superficially, she incidentally burst a volleyball.
      • In High School Girls are Funky -- Megaton Poke, Yanagin had Habara try out the "punch machine" in the arcade in which the former just broke the new record. While Habara didn't get as many points as Yanagin by far... close inspections revealed a hole on the punching pad after Habara played with it, and upon asking Habara said she didn't know she has to clench her fist in the first place... Which mean she just stabbed her hand into the punch pad.
  • Ikushima Saya in Onidere is often compared to a demon. She's the strongest Delinquent around and her biggest fear is that her beloved one would leave her.

Comic Books

  • Superman is the standard comic-book example, as well as one of the most over-the-top due to Power Creep, Power Seep. During The Silver Age of Comic Books, he regularly juggled planets.
  • The Incredible Hulk is the standard to which other Super Strength wielders are compared in the Marvel Universe, and he only gets stronger as he gets angrier. However, he's only the strongest in theory. In practice, because his strength is never the same at any given moment, there are tons of people whose physical strength can far exceed Hulk's own at the time, as Zeus will now demonstrate, while at other times, Hulk can easily overcome people who are explicitly stronger than those who previously handed him his ass, like Juggernaut, Thor or Zeus' own son, Hercules.
    • Unlike her cousin, She Hulk doesn't get stronger when she's angry. However, her strength when she's "hulked out" is exponentially proportional to her strength as a normal human. A month of exercise and an extra pound or two of muscle mass can make her as strong as the Hulk at baseline; too bad for her she never goes to the gym except to show off when she's already big and green.
  • The X-Men have had many examples, with Beast being the earliest and Colossus probably being the best-known.
  • Ghost Rider, Spider-Man, Silver Surfer, Superman, Darkseid, Apocalypse, The Sentry, The Mighty Thor, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, Aquaman, Ms. Marvel, Rogue (until recently), etc. are all cases in point of Super Strength being a "basic feature" included for characters with Combo-Platter Powers. The degree of their strength varies considerably, but all are vastly stronger than it's possible for a real human to be.
    • Note that Spider-Man's "proportional strength of a spider" line crosses with another trope as well.
  • Usually a default benefit of Powered Armor, especially if in comics, such as Iron Man, Doctor Doom, etc.
  • The Asterix comic books are about a village of Gauls who fend off the Roman empire with the aid of a magic potion that grants them the power to send Roman legionaries flying with their punches. Asterix's friend Obelix doesn't get a dose of the potion when all the other villagers are lining up for it, since he fell into the cauldron as a baby, an event which increased his strength permanently.
    • On one occasion only Obelix was given a tiny dose... so that he could punch his way out of a pyramid.
  • Popeye - even without his spinach he is still capable of feats of strength even the strongest man can't do. With it? He's as strong as he needs to be.
  • There is one Donald Duck cartoon where he gets Super Strength and flight but not the Required Secondary Powers to go with it. A rocky island he lifts up crumbles in his hands, and a ship he salvages from the ocean floor snaps in half, comically squashing him.
  • Old characters in both The Beano and The Dandy employ this trope examples include Pansy Potter from The Beano and Desperate Dan from The Dandy.
  • The Tick (animation) has the proportional strength of a tick his size who engages in routine exercise.
  • Savage Dragon and thus, many of his villains, have super strength as well.


Fan Works


Film

  • Ghost Rider gives an impressive visual example of super strength violating the laws of physics, as the Rider snares a helicopter with his chain and pulls it down. Unless he's heavier than a helicopter, tugging on the chain should have launched him toward it. Whatever demonic powers were at work somehow knew which he was trying to achieve.
  • Mr. Incredible from The Incredibles has Super-strength and (apart from some degree of implied invulnerability) that's pretty much it. It's actually quite a hassle, because if he doesn't concentrate on keeping it in check he can accidentally saw a plate in half when cutting his steak or indent his fingerprints into his car, and the only way he can believably work out is to rig up an exercise machine with entire locomotives used as weights.
  • The recent CG-film version of Beowulf certainly implied that the title character has beyond normal strength and fortitude. As he should: The original poem states that he had the strength of 30 men.
    • In each arm.
  • Mr. Hyde, in—among other things -- The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
  • While not Superman level, David in Unbreakable can rip car doors off and lift over five hundred pounds.
    • In his case, Super Strength may be a direct side-effect of his immunity to injury. Normal humans probably would be able to lift that much weight, if not for self-defense reflexes in our muscles, which stop us from exerting too much force. With no fear of sprains or muscle tears, David can use 100% of his muscles' potential, where most of us poop out at a fraction of maximum contractile power.
  • Fezzik in The Princess Bride. Most noted during Westley's first encounter with the giant, as Fezzik holds an enormous boulder in one hand, and nonchalantly chucks it over his shoulder when they decide to fight hand-to-hand combat.
  • The Adventures of Captain Marvel film serial of 1941 showcases one of the earliest film examples (which makes sense, given its the first superhero film of all time) with the titular Captain Marvel. Throughout the 12 episode serial, the Captain lifts enormous stone columns, large fallen trees, elevator cars, and other feats of strength, to the point where he ends some of his fist fights with criminals by casually slapping them.
  • The Golem in the silent movie classic The Golem is arguably super-strong, single-handedly supporting the ceiling of the Emperor's palace at one point.


Literature

  • Golden Boy in the Wild Cards franchise had super strength that the authors tried to portray realistically. If a speeding car or tank slammed into him, for instance, his super strength did nothing to anchor him to the ground and he'd get tossed around like a ragdoll—he had to drop down to the ground and let the tank run part of the way over him, then lift it up and hurl it aside.
  • Earthcrafters in Codex Alera can give themselves super strength by using their furies. Particularly powerful ones tend to wade into battle wielding huge BFSs and warhammers to get the most out of this ability.
  • Fezzik in The Princess Bride.
  • Eponymous character in Aatomik has super strength as his main power.
  • Most nonhuman creatures in The Dresden Files, especially when compared with puny humans.
  • Wrestling Matt in Of Snail Slime.


Live Action Television

  • One of the basic abilities of a Slayer in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
    • Vampires also have super strength, though it's unclear whether they have it to the same degree.
      • Most of them don't. Angel, one of the stronger vampires in the franchise, admits that Buffy is stronger than him.
      • Vampire strength varies greatly, with older vampires tending to be stronger. "Bloodline" seems to matter too; those turned by truly ancient vampires like the Master seem to be unusually strong even by vampire standards, from the moment they're turned. The most commonly seen vampires in the Buffy Verse, Angel and Spike, benefit on both counts.
  • Elliot Reid from Scrubs has it. What? She has the finger strength of a rock-climbing jazz pianist, once lifted J.D. off the ground by his neck, and is described to be "thick through the trunk"!
    • She also has powerful legs, demonstrated when she snapped a food tray in half and served as the bottom third of the World's Most Most Giant Doctor for about 15 seconds; Lonnie isn't as sturdy as she is.
  • Jim Powell on No Ordinary Family is super-strong.
  • Niki on Heroes has super-strength. Too bad it drives her insane.
    • Volume 3 introduces Knox, a villain who's Super Strength is powered by fear. It's Better Than It Sounds because while Niki has run-of-the-mill super strength, as long as Knox is surrounded by fear he can get stronger and stronger, kinda like The Hulk is with anger. On the other hand, he's powerless if nobody around is afraid.
    • There was also Mohinder, after he injected himself with a formula for super people. It started to kill him, but he got an improved formula that allows him to use without fear.
      • The writers seem to really hate this power, which is strange considering it's one of the cheapest effects to do. Volume four Mohinder is the first character with this power that wasn't either killed off in one episode, permanently insane from his power, or required some gimmick to make it work (such as fear).
  • In No Heroics She-Force is the world's third strongest person. And apparently sexually clumsy...
  • Brutally subverted in The 4400, when a guy gets super strength, and uses it to kick the drug dealers and hoodlums out of his neighbourhood park. Then one stabs him. Fortunately, his death inspires the people of the neighbourhood.
  • This is the central device of the Korean series Strong Girl Bong-soon. Bong-soon is the latest recipient of a mystic gift of profound strength, which has been passed down from mother to daughter for generations. The strength comes with a catch -- if it's misused, it will desert the recipient. Her mother misused her strength and lost it, so Bong-soon is very cautious about using hers -- but when she does, she can send large men flying hundreds of feet with a single blow.


Mythology

  • Hercules, Samson, Gilgamesh, and a host of other heroes from legend and myth have all had it. Likewise for virtually every ancient myth's gods.


Tabletop Games

  • Mutants and Masterminds separates this out from enhanced strength. Enhanced Strength applies to all abilities using strength such as increased lifting capability, melee damage, and skill checks and for all practical purposes, just directly increases your strength score. Super-strength only applies to lifting and "feats of strength" involving sustained force like forcing open doors, grappling, etc, but is available at a fifth of the price. It's also traditional used for power stunts like super-breath, GroundPounding, and the like.
  • Third Edition just uses Enhanced Strength (Limited to lifting), due to the greatly accelerated progression of carrying capacity.
  • GURPS lets you buy Lifting or Striking strength separate from normal strength. To simulate people like Superman or the Hulk the Super Effort enhancement increases normal strength exponentially when you really need it.
  • Represented in the old Marvel Super Heroes RPG with a good roll for your Strength stat...if you were playing a character type with access to the upper echelons, that is. (Incredible is about Spider-Man strength. Monstrous or...whatever the level after that was...lets you hit people with oil tankers.)
  • The Potence discipline in Vampire: The Masquerade gives vampires super strength. Clan Brujah is most known for it, but it's generally relatively common among vampires. Even some ghouls eventually learn lower levels of it.
    • Ghouls get the first level of Potence from the very beginning.
    • In Vampire: The Requiem, Potence is replaced with Vigor, which does pretty much the same thing.


Toys

  • Bionicle: granted by the Mask of Strength
    • Different Kinds of Toa have a degree of it ingrained naturally. The Makuta all posses it. Some Characters with impressive strength include Nocturn, Takutanuva, Tren Krom, and especially Mata Nui.


Video Games

  • Super Mario Bros:
  • In the Resident Evil series, Wesker is capable of lifting missiles with one hand, piercing through his enemies' chests with his fingers, and holding Chris with one hand by the throat, among other feats of strength after his last upgrade in Resident Evil 5. The man's practically a living, breathing machine and shows almost no damage after having a crane full of steel girders dropped on his head. Then again, he's not exactly human after the first game, either.
  • "Sasha", the minigun of the Heavy Weapons Guy from Team Fortress 2, is said to weigh 150 kilograms (a bit over 330 pounds), but he has no problems lifting it. Or running around with it. He also dishes out the same melee damage with his bare hands that the other characters need bats, wrenches, shovels, and huge knives to deliver, and in one of his taunt animations, he effortlessly spins his holdout weapon, a 12-gauge shotgun, like it was a pistol.
  • While a number of characters in Final Fantasy VII have displayed Charles Atlas Superpowers, Sephiroth, the main villain of the game, has explicit Super Strength, wielding his 8-foot Masamune as if it were a dagger, and at one point, impaling a subway-train sized snake with a tree. Cloud, the main character, has his own massive sword (not as long as Seph's Masamune, but wider and almost certainly heavier), and wields it with similar ease.
  • Super Strength is a powerup in Backyard Football.
  • Alex Mercer in Prototype is the size of an average human, but can lift a car over his head and chuck it like a baseball. At maximum upgrade with Musclemass, he can throw one at least a city block if not more. Same goes for the destroyed shells of tanks and helicopters.
  • Kratos from God of War can rip people in half, knock pillars over, and go toe-to-toe with various monsters and gods. Justified because he is Zeus' son.
  • Dante from Dantes Inferno.
  • Lara Croft from Tomb Raider is able to push around blocks of solid rock measuring roughly 2 metres per side, which puts them at a weight of about 20 metric tonnes.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog is capable of sending cars flying like footballs. Shadow the Hedgehog is stronger still and Knuckles is even stronger than that. When in their Super Forms, their strength is unimaginable
    • Tails is quite capable of punching through solid rock.
  • From Halo, all of the Spartans are capable of lifting a few tons and running at in-human speeds.
  • Done subtly in Mass Effect 2 with Commander Shepard, who is rebuilt with extensive cybernetic upgrades. The super strength isn't obvious, but Shepard is shown to be capable of wielding weapons that would be impossible for normal humans to use, i.e. a shotgun that would break normal humans' arms or carrying an antitank rifle that normally can only be fired while prone (or used by geth). Shepard can also lift and push aside heavy steel girders or debris, can punch out krogan soldiers in hand-to-hand combat, knock out fully-armored soldiers with his/her bare fists in the Arrival DLC, and take on the Shadow Broker in hand-to-hand combat (the Shadow Broker being a three meter tall alien massing several times that of a normal human).
  • Zig-zagged in Minecraft. Players can fill up their inventory with feaths (a total of 4.6 kg) and not carry any more... but they can carry up to just short of 50,000 tons (filling the inventory with nothing but gold blocks), without any difficulty whatsoever.
  • In Chrono Trigger, both Robot Buddy and Ayla display feats of massive strength:
    • In the factory level in 2300 AD, Robo holds a steel security door that must weigh several tonnes open.
    • Ayla can easily toss enemies larger than herself several meters up into the air.
    • In a combination technique, Ayla and Robo bat enemies larger than themselves back and forth like a baseball.
    • In another combination technique with Marle, Ayla hits the enemy with a chunk of ice that is at least five times her own size.
  • Byakuren Hijiri from Touhou Project specializes herself in magic that augments her own physical abilities, which allegedly grants her super strength, among other useful powers such as Super Speed. One of her spellcards is aptly named 'Superhuman "Byakuren Hijiri"'.


Web Comics

  • A standard trait of Constructs in Girl Genius, as shown by the Jägers, Punch and Judy, and Von Pinn. This fact has led to some Wild Mass Guessing on whether or not Gilgamesh is a Construct after he managed to lift and throw a Humongous Mecha.
    • It also seems to be a power of any sufficiently powerful Spark when they're in The Madness Place. Then there's the Baron.
  • Subverted in Van Von Hunter. The magic gauntlets acquired by Van's sidekick let her lift very heavy things, but not throw them, push them, or manipulate them in any other way.
  • Mr. Mighty from Everyday Heroes has this power, as does his daughter.
  • In the Walkyverse, the majority of abductees have superhuman strength and durability as standard powers.
  • Nova from Overlord Academy has this power.
  • A few characters in Homestuck possess MANGRIT, which is basically Super Strength but manlier and grittier. John's Dad is strong enough to bend jail cell bars and throw around safes. The troll Equius also possesses considerable MANGRIT—too much in fact. He injures his Lusus with grateful pats on the head which are done as gently as possible—made even more impressive by said Lusus being one of the strongest on the planet and the only one that could survive raising Equius. Every time he tries to enjoy a glass of milk the glass breaks and he spills it. He wants to be an archer but has to settle for being a fistfighter because he always breaks the bows. John eventually develops enough MANGRIT to Dual Wield sledgehammers.
  • Demon Lord Horribus from Sluggy Freelance was treated as an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain for years, until his demons finally got their own major story in "That Which Redeems". When he finally confronts Torg in the climactic ending, the gloves really come off. Though it has already been hinted that a Demon Lord is very powerful, his true power is revealed when he attacks the heroes by knocking down stone buildings, picking them up and using them as projectile weapons.


Web Original

  • Scientists in the Global Guardians PBEM Universe have determined that this is the most common superpower in the world. An estimated 60% of all metahumans have Super Strength to some degree or other, ranging from people who are still within normal ranges for athletic humans (but who obviously are much stronger than their height, weight, build would indicate) to people capable of lifting megatons worth of weight.
    • An example of the first would be Audrey Cohen, a seven year old girl featured in a People Magazine cover story in 1995. In front of a dozen witnesses, Ms. Cohen lifted nearly two hundred pounds over her head. She was retested in 2010 at age 21, where it was shown that her maximum lift capacity was about 320 pounds.
    • An example of the second would be the supervillain Rampage, for whose strength no upper limit has ever been found.
  • Pretty common in the Whateley Universe, ranging from Exemplars who are just really strong to 'flying bricks' like Lancer who has a PK field so he can lift that car without breaking it.
  • Let us all not forget that Tristan Taylor's Voice gives him Super Strength.
  • Also common in the Less Than Three Comics-Verse. Mr Perfect, The Richards Brothers and The Freak all have super strength, as do a number of background characters.
  • A fair amount of characters from Darwins Soldiers have this power but Alfred, a Funny Animal bison, is quite possibly the strongest of them. He has thrown boulders weighing hundreds of pounds at his enemies, fought a cybernetic warrior to a standstill and disabled his gun arm - by smashing the ammunition feed port and tied a knot in a piece of rebar.
    • Aimee also has some degree of this (demonstrated when she crushes the barrel of a pistol) with her cybernetic arms.
    • It is mentioned that bovids in general have some degree of this.

Random Bystander: Bovids naturally have incredible strength. Trust me, I once saw one tie a knot in a piece of rebar.


Western Animation

  • One of Bravestarr's animal-based powers is "strength of the bear."
  • Hego from Team Go in Kim Possible has Super Strength as his power.
  • Lisa Simpson had this power in a Treehouse of Horror episode of The Simpsons.
  • From Teen Titans, Cyborg, Starfire, Beast Boy (depending on form; his gorilla form is the go-to for feats of strength), Pantha, and believe it or not, Aqualad. (Hey, YOU try breaking down the doors to Titans Tower with your bare hands!)
  • Ed from Ed, Edd n Eddy is shown to have incredible feats of strength such as lifting the pavement out of a sidewalk, uprooting a tree and carrying it along with him, carrying a cow on his shoulders while running, bending swing sets and monkey bars into the shapes of chickens, lifting a whole house off the ground,etc.
    • Rolf and Sarah are also shown to be incredibly strong.
      • It's justified differently in-universe for each of them: Ed is too dumb to know he can't be that strong, Sarah's a product of her extreme temper, and Rolf gets it from backbreaking farm work.
  • Brock Samson of The Venture Brothers fame has what's best described as Charles Atlas Superpower but there are times (particularly when angry) when he pushes into the realm of Super Strength like when he ripped apart a car that had been programmed to kill him with his bare hands.
    • Whilst shedding Manly Tears (the car in question being his own beloved Charger)
  • On The Fairly OddParents, The Crimson Chin has this power. Francis and Trixie get it briefly in "The Big Superhero Wish".
  • The Gnormans on Jimmy Two Shoes.
  • Implied in The Little Mermaid when Ariel manages to move an underwater boulder (most likely sealed shut with an imbalanced volume on both sides) blocking her Grotto with relative ease.
    • Even more implied with Flounder. How the heck was he even able to get a giant statue of a Prince into Ariel's Grotto. (Assuming the only people who knew about the Grotto were Ariel, Flounder, and Sebastian)
  • The power of the Ox Talisman in Jackie Chan Adventures.
  • Raseem in The Arabian Knights.
  • The eponymous gargoyles from Gargoyles. Even the smallest, Lexington, is physically much stronger than a normal human, able to bend steel and iron and rip walls out with ease. Goliath and Demona are the strongest of them all-Goliath was actually stated to be able to use a bus as a weapon, and Demona yanked out a massive boulder with ease and uses it as a wrecking ball.
  • Comet Guy, a frequent friend annoyance to Darkwing Duck, has this, as do most of those from his homeworld.
  • In Batman Beyond, the Batsuit gives Terry McGuinnis super strength.
  • Jenny frequently used hers on My Life as a Teenage Robot; her Bragging Theme Tune claims she has "the strength of a million-and-seventy men."
  • Radioactive waste in Family Guy gave Lois this power.
  • Angel Bunny, a plain, ordinary rabbit, once threw an adult pony out a window in a fit of pique.


Real Life

  • The protein myostatin limits muscle growth in people and other mammals. Rare mutations can suppress the production of myostatin, or reduce the body's sensitivity to it, resulting in heightened muscle development. Scientists bred this condition into "mighty mice", and at least one German child was born with the condition, resulting in double the normal amount of muscle mass. The obvious drawback to this condition is that subjects would starve to death much more quickly than normal because they could not catabolize their muscle mass properly.
  • A normal human being has the capability to lift over a ton in emergency situations, and only emergency situations. It shuts down the immune system and digestive system when it happens, however (not permanently, of course), and doesn't last more than a minute.
  • Super Strength in the original sense of the trope (the superpower before all superpowers, which makes your Kung-Fu superfluous) is encountered in the animal kingdom - in bears. The ordinary bruin is able to do a lot of things while obviously not built for them, like running for short time as fast as a racehorse, digging with the force of an excavator, raising truck-sized boulders to get its food and beating most other land animals to a pulp if cornered, despite the common "Bear vs. Gorilla" forum babbles. Beyond all shortcomings of its supposed heavy and unwieldy ursine build, it all plays down to insane muscle power.
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