World's Strongest Man

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/S6077-s_8783.png

"You can't beat me with strength.
Speed can't beat me.
You're gonna find out, you, just, can't, beat, me... period!
I am the world's strongest man! You better be worried about surviving through the night."

— Mark Henry

The World's Strongest Man is a character who is, well — the strongest man in the world or universe, or, at the very least the strongest human. He may be brainy or stupid (sometimes he Does Not Know His Own Strength), attractive or ugly (or neither), but one thing is for sure — you don't want to mess with him, as he will most definitely wipe the floor with you. He may be going on The Hero's Journey, or he may just be full of himself and his power. If he's a villain, he's often either the Big Bad or The Dragon.

This trope may be played with by Samus Is a Girl or Fake Ultimate Hero. See also Super-Strength and The Strongman. Note that this trope refers to a character type, determining just who is the strongest leads to arguments about Character Tiers.

Almost certainly has at least The Strength of Ten Men. Likely to be seen with clowns, contortionists, Circus Brats and Girls With Mustaches. Often billed side-by-side with The Freakshow. May overlap with World's Best Warrior, although "best warrior" doesn't necessarily mean "strongest." World's Most Beautiful Woman might be an arguable Distaff Counterpart, because Men Are Strong, Women Are Pretty. World's Smartest Man is the intellectual counterpart. See also The Greatest Style, for a fighting or competition method which is better than all the others.

Sub-Trope of "World's Best" Character, for being that, but only for pure strength.

Examples:

Example subpages:

open/close all folders

Comic Books

Asterix the Gaul has Obelix, a dumb-but-super-strong sidekick who fell into a vat of strength potion as a child.
Bamse is the world's strongest bear.
Some older adventure strips from The Beano featured characters like this such as Morgyn the Mighty.
In The Boys, Homelander is the strongest Superhero by a pretty hefty margin. In the finale, the military massacres all of the other Supers easily, but Black Noir (his physically-matched clone) is able to take the combined firepower of dozens of aircrafts and Humvees with ease, and only dies because he was already mortally wounded by Homelander. It's stated that even as a child, Vought had to keep a nuclear bomb next to him, as that's the only way they could kill him.
The Dandy has Desperate Dan, who memorably once won a World's Strongest Man competition by lifting all the other competitors, plus everything they were lifting.
Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol has Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery. He is so strong that he can alter the fabric of reality with the precisely tuned vibrations of his muscles, at one point turning the Pentagon into a circle. Which may be some kind of record.
Fantastic Four:
- Franklin Richards is often touted as Marvel's most powerful character or at least in the Top 5 at very least. Franklin is so powerful he is actually recognized as by The Celestials as their equal, which means Franklin is no less than a Physical God... Well, in the future at least.
- Thundra is another Marvel character who can stake a claim to the title among the female stable, as she is the world's strongest woman in her timeline.
The Flash: The Flashes' speed powers are ridic ulous, even by comic book standards, for their destructive potential. Beyond the simple potential for near/actually infinite speed, they can imitate Super-Strength up to Superman tier, become intangible, generate and manipulate lightning etc. Their ability to Time Travel allows them to warp reality, whether intentionally or by accident, they can destabilize Green Lantern constructs and if they generate enough energy they can disrupt the various other elements of the universe including magic. Like the Hulk, writers wisely put in a clause that their powers are partially mental so they don't always have access to the full gamut, but in terms of just the humans, the Flashes are considered among the, if not the, strongest men.
Ghost Rider:
- Similar to the Flash example, Ghost Rider is theoretically this in the grand scope the Marvel Universe. Johnny Blaze and other Riders possessing the Spirit of Vengeance are easily the most ridiculously powerful and nigh-invulnerable Earth-based characters in Marvel and even make a lot of DC heroes look reasonable in comparison. Johnny alone has humiliated the likes of Thor, Doctor Strange, gave the Earth's Mightiest Heroes an absolute clobbering in Uncanny Avengers and explicitly could've beaten World War Hulk too, if his heart was in it. Alejandra Jones (a Ghost Rider who came after Johnny) could rip Mephisto's heart out of his chest, and Johnny as the King of Hell can drag Mephisto — a character who's equaled Galactus in power in a fight that made the universe shake — around like a ragdoll. Then there's Cosmic Ghost Rider Frank Castle, who can not only beat the crap of Thanos, but eviscerated armies of Marvel's heroes and villains without effort and casually possessed a Celestial (you know, those guys who created the multiverse?). The Rule of Drama and holy weapons are the only things keeping Ghost Rider(s) solving from most problems in the MU. Cosmic Ghost Rider also got The Worf Effect courtesy of Hela, although that's mainly due him being undead himself whereas she's the Goddess of Death.
- This is demonstrated in Fantastic Four: The Animated Series where Galactus arrives on Earth and is naturally wrecking shop like one would expect of a borderline Physical God... until Daniel Ketch (the second Ghost Rider) rocks up on his bike and gives ol' purple helmet the Penance Stare which takes Galactus down as simple as that.
The Incredible Hulk: The Hulk's potential strength is theoretically unlimited, making him the Marvel Universe's strongest character. Green Scar in particular is the strongest version of the Hulk. Word of God is that the Green Scar Hulk is "stronger than any mortal and most immortals in the Marvel Universe." So he is literally the strongest man; anyone stronger than him is at least a Physical God, and he's stronger than most of those as the only heroes who were able to challenge the Hulk in Green Scar form were the Sentry (see below), The Mighty Thor (in a "What If?" when he beat the Sentry to New York) and Ghost Rider (who only came to reason with the Hulk and never attacked since he only defends the innocent and the group Hulk was after, the Illuminati, were very much not innocent). Devil Hulk (the Hulk incarnation who stars in Immortal Hulk) is on the cusp of this trope now, given he defeated The One Below All (the counterpart to The One Above All) with one Shockwave Clap, though he admitted it only bought the protagonists a minute's breathing space to escape it. The last issue in the run outright confirms Hulk as the strongest character in Marvel as it turns out he's actually a direct creation/"child" of The One Above All meant the serve as the "counterweight" to creation by being the embodiment of destruction. Likewise, the reveal that The One Below All is actually the Superpowered Evil Side to The One Above All makes Hulk's aforementioned thunderclapping of the deity even more impressive given he essentially blow away the creator of everything.
Thragg from Invincible is the strongest Viltrumite and probably the strongest character in that verse to boot given he can No-Sell pretty anything the heroes hit him with, as well as rip his foes apart as easily as paper. The only one who equaled and wounded him in battle was Battle Beast, who fought him for days until Thragg eventually killed him. Another time it took a half dozen Viltrumites just to incapacitate Thragg, and then they had to trap both his arms afterward. In the final battle, Mark only manages to take Thragg down due to his wife Eve's near-death activated power boosting his own strength, and by flying Thragg into sun to weaken him. Mark only survives and killed Thragg thanks to Robot sending a suit in at the last minute to briefly protect Mark from the sun's heat, ensuring that Thragg would take more damage from the sun. Even with Mark ripping Thragg's throat out for good measure, it still takes time for Thragg to kick the bucket while burning and bleeding to death. It's safe to assume Mark gets this title at the end, becoming the Grand Regent Viltrumite after killing Thragg and left unchallenged to live a peaceful life with his family.
There is the Marvel Comics character Champion of the Universe, one of the Elders of the Universe. His first appearance had him dropping in for a fight for the fate of Earth with many heroes either being defeated or disqualified for not fighting the way he liked. He ends up being so impressed by his final opponent, the Thing, that he spares Earth.
Nero: Jan Spier, the local French fries seller, is very strong. He is able to lift an elephant with one hand, for instance. But author Marc Sleen at least didn't use him that often to avoid predictability.
The Sentry has also been repeatedly called Marvel's most powerful hero. Having exchanged punches with Hulk (Green Scar version) and Thor, overloaded Absorbing Man (who, mind you, could absorb Thor's strength and his hammer's properties) and, according to Spider-Man, beat up Galactus. But in the end, Marvel's most powerful depends on the story: sometimes it's Hulk, sometimes it's Sentry, etc. The number of people calling Sentry the strongest anything decreased markedly after reader opinion turned against him, however.
Shazam! (aka "The DC Superhero Formerly Known as Captain Marvel") is often considered the "World's Mightiest Mortal," with an advantage towards Superman due to his magical nature.
- Shazam's tagline of "World's Mightiest Mortal" originated when he was with Fawcett and there were no real contenders for the title other than Black Adam and (possibly) King Kull. Even when DC licensed the character, he was envisioned as living in the "Earth-S" monoverse and didn't really cross over with the other DC characters much until after the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths merged it with those containing Earths 1, 2, 4, and X. This is another case where Depending on the Writer is in full effect (their actual strength is usually treated as virtually even, but The Big Red Cheese is likely to win a contest of opposed strength because of the "magic" clause in Superman's vulnerabilities). Most depictions have them exactly even (or so close that they might as well be) in terms of their basic Flying Brick powers; Shazam's advantage is his magical nature (and ability to call down magical lightning), while Superman has long-range attacks in his arsenal like heat vision and freezing breath.
- The New 52 timeline continues the dynamic with Superman. During a battle in Khandaq, the two traded blows fairly evenly. Superman got the last punch in, but he also started the fight with a sucker punch and had help from Wonder Woman. Likewise, Billy wasn't unconscious and capable of fighting, stopping only because the Justice League showed up. A later Justice League issue had Billy mention to Superman they should do some tests to see if one was stronger than the other.
She-Hulk is generally billed as the strongest woman in the world in the Marvel Universe, though this is contested whenever her Evil Counterpart and usual Arch-Enemy, Titania, enters the picture. Titania is commonly portrayed as stronger than a calm She-Hulk despite usually ending up on the wrong side of The Worf Effect, and both women can further increase their already impressive strength through various means.
Spider-Man usually wouldn't make this list — although it's wise not to sell him short; he's the upper crust of street-level heroes and defeats beings stronger than him on a consistent basis — but Cosmic Spider-Man makes a lot of these examples look tame by comparison. Cosmic Spidey using the Unipower can can literally do anything he wants and unlike most other characters who gained this power, Spider-Man is already superhuman so Peter's Super-Strength and Spider-Sense are exaggerated. Some of his feats include: punching Grey Hulk into space, humiliating Magneto and KO'ing Thor, all foes that are usually leagues beyond Spidey. Yes, Cosmic Spider-Man is given The Worf Effect in Spider-Verse, but considering how omnipotent this version of Spider-Man is normally, you can write it off as a case of Power Creep, Power Seep.
Star Wars Legends:
- Emperor Palpatine was already an extremely powerful Force user but in Dark Empire he returns more powerful than ever in different clone bodies, effectively granting him Physical God status. Among his slew of powers is a Force ability known as the Force Storm, which can destroy multiple star fighters and distort space and time. Despite Luke having grown in power since the events of Return of the Jedi, Palpatine still eclipses him, only being defeated when Luke and Leia cut off his connection to the Force.
- Darth Krayt from Star Wars: Legacy, the most powerful Sith of his era and one of the most powerful Sith to ever exist due to an immensely strong connection to the Force. He's only restricted by his Vong implants... which are eventually removed, allowing him to truly claim this title.
Supergirl:
- Supergirl and Power Girl are other contenders for strongest woman in the DCU, being, power-wise, female Supermen (see his entry below). Sometimes, they're even depicted as being stronger than their cousin.
- In Many Happy Returns, the original Pre-Crisis Supergirl was stranded in the Post-Crisis universe for a short while. Since she is an Earth-1 Kryptonian, she was the world's strongest being.
- In Pre-Crisis continuity, Earth-1 Supergirl is the world's strongest woman. Power Girl lives on Earth-2 and is less powerful, Mary Marvel lives on Earth-S, Miss Martian doesn't exist and the Amazons are way weaker than Kryptonians. In Supergirl Vol. 1 #7 a dialog box calls Linda "The mightiest girl on Earth... Supergirl!"
Superman:
- Superman is generally thought of as the strongest superhero in the DC universe, though there are a number of cosmic and legendary beings who are comparable and may (depending on the writer) be depicted as stronger than him, including Heracles, Darkseid, Brainiac, Mongul, Doomsday, Despero, Monarch, Sodam Yat, Vartox (Pre-Crisis), Superboy Prime, Ariella Kent, and his Kingdom Come counterpart. Ostensibly Superboy Prime was the strongest character in the main DC universe — just not emotionally. Though aside from Heracles, none of these characters are regularly present on Earth so he has a reasonable claim to the title.
- Most of these are close enough that a writer could legitimately show it going either way depending on who's having an off day or who's more clever about how they apply their strength. DC also gets to have its cake and eat it too with Superman whenever they say he's the strongest man in the universe: Because Superman gets stronger as he ages, when he's outmuscled it's because he's not the strongest that day, but his strength improves so eventually he'll outmatch his prior opponent, with the Strange Visitor Superman being the culmination of this.
- There are some characters on DC Earth (mostly those tied into the Vertigo line) that Superman is almost never depicted as having any kind of chance against, such as The Spectre and Lucifer Morningstar (who, for a period of time, owned a bar in L.A.). Though those particular characters are very much magical (of the "divine" variety), as opposed to being physically stronger.
- Also, exactly how strong Superman is varies greatly depending on the writer or era in question. Because Supes has been around a long time and because of the need to keep stories interesting by continually putting him in situations where it looks like he might lose only to have him through at the last minute with a heroic effort topping anything he's done before, by the early 1970s he could reduce planet-sized objects to rubble with a single punch. He's been rebooted several times since then, each time depowering him back to less godlike levels, but it never sticks for long (for essentially the same reason).
Suske en Wiske: Jerom possesses all kinds of superpowers that lend themselves to great gags, but also posed the story writers for a problem. It's so easy to use him as a Deus ex Machina that they need to send him off on vacation or give him a sleeping potion to make the stories not to predictable.
Thanos becomes this in The Infinity Gauntlet storyline. With the power of the six Infinity Gems, he wipes out half the universe and curb stomps the surviving heroes who tried to fight him. If that wasn't enough, the Cosmic Entities Love, Hate, The Stranger, Epoch, Chaos, Order, and Galactus all joined the fray as well and Thanos kicked their asses too. It took Nebula taking the Gauntlet off Thanos's hand when he was distracted to actually defeat him. Though it's important to note even without the Gauntlet, Thanos has enough strength to beat the Hulk, Thor, Silver Surfer, and the Phoenix Force and has Psychic Powers and other abilities that can rival Doctor Strange's. At his absolute peak, Thanos is easily the strongest being in the MU, even if he's not quite as invincible as other cosmic characters. Though there is a limit; the Beyonder can wipe the floor with him.
The Mighty Thor: Thor has frequently come close to this title in the Marvel Universe and taken it a few times.
- Even with no additional buffs, he's considered the strongest and best warrior in Asgard (where everyone has Super-Strength) and when it comes to battles on Earth, only the likes of Hulk, Juggernaut and Sentry can get away with beating him up. Thor has pulled off truly epic feats like destroying planets, hurting cosmic beings like the Phoenix Force and Galactus and even damaged a nigh-invincible Celestial. Also in the Marvel Versus DC crossovers Thor has given both Superman and Shazam a hard time. Still, Thor is subjected to The Worf Effect on a regular basis, and writers tend downplay his might or nerf him to the extent where Thor falls behind the Hulk in terms of strength, as well as his father Odin and other Cosmic Beings in terms of power.
- Played straight with Rune King Thor whom, thanks to sacrificing both his eyes for greater knowledge, became nigh-omnipotent, possessing power that's twice as strong as what Odin wielded.
- Similar to Immortal Hulk, Thor is on the cusp of becoming this title again as of his 2020 series, where he becomes the new Herald of Galactus and has his already godly strength and power increased tenfold. Now Thor can swat aside Beta Ray Bill and effortlessly overpower and later kill Galactus himself. Later on, Herald Thor even defeats Black Winter, a cosmic being greater than Galactus who can consume entire universes.
DC's Vartox is the most powerful warrior of planet Valerion. Pre-Crisis, he was depicted as having strength, speed, durability, senses, etc. vastly superior to Superman's.
Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen; the Trope Codifier for Person of Mass Destruction, arguably Manhattan serves as Deconstruction of this trope and the concept of a "Superhuman" in general. Especially when he's compared to the other, more humble Crimebusters. Watchmen also gives a realistic reaction from the world to a being like Jonathan Osterman, as they see him as no less than a Physical God. The media has to label Manhattan as a superhero so as not to frighten people, and the U.S. government turns Manhattan into a nuclear deterrent against Russia (before he leaves to Mars and all hell breaks loose). Dr. Manhattan is so above petty problems that he eventually becomes apathetic with humanity and tells Ozymandias at the end that he will leave Earth to create his own worlds. In Doomsday Clock, Dr. Manhattan becomes a Canon Immigrant to The DCU and instantly becomes the most powerful thing in it, easily overpowering the likes of Superman and the Reverse-Flash.
Wonder Woman is one of the strongest, if not the strongest female hero in DC comics. In her earliest appearances Diana was explicitly "Stronger than Hercules", and she is generally portrayed as the strongest woman in the DC universe. Strength relative to other heroes depends on who's writing her; she's sometimes portrayed as matching Superman's strength, other times she's closer to "street-level", getting pierced by bullets and literally hurting her hands more than Mongul's face when she tries to punch him.
X-Men:
- Apocalypse often boasts of being the strongest and fittest mutant, and while he is quite powerful more often than not there is Always Someone Better close nearby to make him eat those boasts. Sometimes this is explained away via Worf Had the Flu (his heavy loss to Stryfe in the X-Cutioner's Song story, for example) and other times it just is what it is (he never comes off the better in any encounter involving the Phoenix Force). He did defeat (a young and inexperienced) Exodus below, so he's at least got that going for him.
- Exodus is at one point stated outright to be the "The most powerful mutant on Earth◊", around the time when the character was being groomed as Magneto's permanent replacement. Plans for this fell through after the Blood Ties (Marvel Comics) story and he has not yet to date exhibited the power he did there, though with his powers being psychoactive in nature it is heavily implied he could reach that level again or even surpass it under the right conditions.
- Rogue can potentially be the strongest woman in the Marvel Universe thanks to her Power Parasite ability; at one point in Uncanny Avengers Rogue briefly supports the weight of a falling Celestial, and even before that Rogue has temporarily gained the Juggernaut and even Hulk's strength in the past. Though Rogue tends to get hit with The Worf Effect and the limitations of her mutation are enforced by writers. The recent Excalibur (2019) series pretty much confirms Rogue as the Strongest X-Woman seen when she overpowers Apocalypse and absorbs his power, killing him in the process. He gets better quick though thanks to Professor X and Hope Summers.
- New Sun makes the likes of Exodus, Stryfe and most Omega-Level Mutants look like a walk in the park if you consider the capacity of power New Sun dishes out. In his universe (Earth-9921), New Sun straight-up killed his universe's Phoenix, who's given Galactus a hard time, and if that isn't enough to convince you New Sun is implied◊ to have also killed Apocalypse as well. New Sun was so powerful that he couldn't control his powers and scorched the Earth to a crisp; the great irony is New Sun is actually an evil Alternate Self of Gambit, who's considered one of the weaker X-Men members. As it turns out, if Gambit didn't go to Mister Sinister to have some of his brain tissue removed in order to better control his powers, his ability to manipulate kinetic energy would've eventually evolved into "Total Kinetic Control", allowing him to do so at the molecular level and on a far greater destructive scale.
- Juggernaut is a hypothetical example. He draws functionally limitless power from the magical Crimson Gem of Cyttorak, but as a result his exact power is dependent on the whims of the deity he draws it from. At his absolute peak, he can punch holes through dimensions, overwhelm the Green Scar Hulk head-on, overpower Thor, and manages to be completely invulnerable and unkillable, full stop. More often than not, though, he is used as a garden variety heavy hitter or is there for The Worf Effect. Even then, it still takes an entire team of X-Men to remove his helmet so Professor X can exploit his Achilles' Heel.

Comic Strips

In Mandrake the Magician, Lothar has always been billed as the strongest man in the world.
Popeye: Popeye is abnormally strong. The animated cartoons added a reason for his strength, though: his infamous spinach.

Fan Works

Ashes of the Past: Mewtwo is the World's Most Powerful Pokémon — and he will not let you forget it. It's bluntly stated by Dexter that this is not hyperbole, as the only Pokémon with the sheer power to match him is Arceus, the Pokémon equivalent of God, and even then it's a bit iffy. Arceus only edges out a win by the fact that he has far more control than the much younger Mewtwo, but since he's completely removed from the plot (and the world), the title defaults to Mewtwo.
In The Bridge, there are several depending on which world is brought up.
- Princess Celestia and Luna are the physically and magically most powerful Equestrians without factoring in group spells like the Elements of Harmony or items like the Crystal Heart. Some conditions could allow the likes of Tirek, Queen Chrysalis, or King Sombra to go hoof-to-hoof with them.
- The prequel, Godzilla: New Era has the Millennian note that all of humanity's arms and technology combined is not as big of a threat to them as the current Godzilla, referring to the kaiju as the apex Terran lifeform and the most powerful creature on the planet. G-Force Commander Aso comes to agree with that assessment. His siblings Xenilla and Biollante eventually return to Terra and are roughly equal to him in power, and thus share the title. With Xenilla and Junior in Equestria, Biollante is left as the strongest Terran lifeform.
- The same prequel also shows Belvera and her sisters are likely the most powerful humans on the planet. Note, it takes everyone else massive effort to kill one Millennian drone, Belvera can beat them solo and kills multiple offscreen.
- King Ghidorah, Empera, and Ultraman King are tied for the title of most powerful mortal being in the Terran Universe. As Empera is implied not to be around anymore and Ghidorah was sent to Equestria and then killed by Junior, Xenilla, and Senior, the title defaults to King. Ghidorah was once beaten by Kaizer Ghidorah, whom he considers his Superior Successor, but Kaizer was sent to Equestria too.
Codex Equus:
- The Enchanted Throne of Friendship Gardens turns whoever it deems worthy into the most powerful mortal on the planet by granting them the Majestic Power. This is because it grants them the power of the first mortal Queen of Ponykind, who is believed to have been the most powerful unicorn to ever live. The power was further increased after Queen Sunsparkle kept it during the Second Age and ascended to Godhood, increasing the Majestic Power's strength. The most recent pony to be deemed worthy of it? Fluttershy.
- It's eventually revealed that the source of the Majestic Power was Queen Majesty, the most powerful mortal to have ever lived. Even though the power increases with each pony to permanently bond with it, Majesty lived in the Imperium Era and had access to a great deal of lost technology and magic, and was likely still much stronger than her successors at her strongest.
A Devil Amongst Worms: Makima is regarded as this after defeating Leviathan. Its noted that the only ones on Earth-Bet that have a chance of beating her in a fair fight are Eidolon, Scion, and the remaining Endbringers. Taylor notes she's strong enough to join the Triumvirate.
In the Mario fic Fallen Kingdom, Mario's father Antonio and Bowser’s father Morton Sr. were the strongest men in history. They crumbled mountains and shook continents when they fought. They both killed each other almost 50 years before the story proper, however. In Chapter 38, it is revealed Antonio not only still alive, but also the leader of Seven Stars, an N.G.O. Superpower that has been manipulating everyone behind the scenes. When he finally reveals himself, he fights everyone at once and very nearly wins.
In Power Girl story A Force of Four, Kara Zor-L is the world's strongest metahuman after her cousin's demise. No one else comes close to her.
Holo-Chronicles:
- Sora Tokino is made out to be this in terms of mortal characters, being compared to Satoru Gojo above by Kugeki himself. Each of her 13 knights are individually capable of destroying small countries, and her "Purity Trait" allows her to erase any attacks backed by negative intent... which pretty much makes for any attacks period most of the time. There is all of one weakness to her ridiculous defense, that being that an attack with either positive intent or no real intent at all can't be deleted, but that isn't something that most people aside from Roboco can make use of. All in all, she rightfully deserves her position at the top of the Seven Divas.
- Then there is Baelz Hakos, the so-called "strongest Primordial" by IRyS' diary log. With her Authority of Chaos combined with the Calamity Trait: Chaotic Order, she is capable of controlling the laws of reality and nature at a whim and applying a rather potent Nerf to her opponents that includes (with the exceptions of IRyS and Mumei) complete negation of their traits. It's saying something when IRyS claims Bae can take on an Elder God (a being above the Primordials in the divine ranking system) and win.
- As far as sheer physical strength goes, Noel Shirogane is revealed to be the highest amongst mortal talents via a Freeze-Frame Bonus graph, and if her strength is like what has been shown in the hololive Alternative trailers (which include her lifting up Coco's full dragon form and tossing it into the sky), then she most definitely deserves this sort of praise.
Ricky Flame from iCarly gets this treatment in the fic iFight Crime With Victorious. Ironic, since he tried to wrestle fifth-graders in the show and was pinned by a 14 to 16-year-old girl seconds after.
Incarnation of Legends:
- Oryou is revered and feared as the strongest adventurer of the Far East, putting every other adventurer in the Amaterasu, Hachiman, Tsukuyomi, and Susanoo Familia to shame. She is also its only Level 6 Adventurer, and thus the only one on the same tier as the strongest adventurers of the Loki and Freya Familia.
- Similarly, the Legiones of Rakia is his country's strongest adventurer, as one of the four outsiders to have defeated Orario's best, along with Oryou, The Radiance, and The Asura. He's revered with an almost god-like reverence in Rakia, with his soldiers demonstrating the same Patriotic Fervor as him and growing cross if anyone crosses the path of his march. Given that he's Romulus-Quirinus, the supreme god of Rome, this comes as little surprise.
Even if we discount his inherent eldritch tricks up his sleeve, the Good Hunter from The Night Unfurls can certainly contend to this title amongst the Bloodborne-Kuroinu 'verse, given that he is an unkillable hunter of beasts and otherworldly beings who is stronger, faster, and tougher like no other.
Paul's pride at being the strongest man in the world gets cruelly shot down in The Keys Stand Alone: The Soft World, when Andro casually informs him that he's the eighth strongest person they know about. Of course, this is with Paul at his low level of strength. At high, he's certainly still the strongest, but he doesn't dare go to that level... and he's also terribly jealous that Andro, now effectively the strongest person in the world, can behave like a normal human being, while Paul suffers from Power Incontinence.
Last Child of Krypton: In this crossover, Shinji is Superman and Asuka is Wonder Woman (Supergirl in the story's second version). They're the two strongest humans on the planet. In his first public appearance, Shinji beat a giant monster up with his bare hands.
In The Last Daughter and its rewrite The Girl of Tomorrow, Taylor is a Kryptonian. She's the strongest human in the planet. She's capable of shattering moons with her fists.
Pony POV Series:
- General Hercules Beetle is presented as this, at least for his own species. Most Changelings are no match for an Earth Pony in physical strength (Changelings' specialty is stealth, in all other areas they're far weaker compared to the other types of ponies), Hercules Beetle is on par with one in a test of strength (and that's before he goes One-Winged Angel) and is stated to be the 'second most dangerous Changeling in existence' behind Queen Chrysalis herself by the Interviewers, and even then it's not clear if she's actually physically stronger than he is even if she's undoubtedly got more power than him. He shows this by being able to fight ten very powerful ponies at once for a prolonged period of time, including some of Equestria's best Royal Guards, several Gifted Unicorns, and a black belt , and just barely loses. With Chrysalis' death (which resulted in the Changeling Queen's Reincarnation into an infant Zebralicorn), Hercules is now undoubtedly the strongest Changeling on the planet.
- Queen Majesty is stated during the Rumors Arc to be the strongest unicorn royal who has ever lived. During her Origins Episode, her power is shown in full, and is outright said by the First Spellcaster of an elf kingdom she spends time in to be the strongest magic user he'd ever seen. She shows this by curbstomping an entire coven of witches (of Hydia's clan, who are stated to be much stronger) with no effort and no formal training. It's later shown she's as powerful as Lord Tirek, with the two considered the most powerful beings on the planet at the time.
- Applebloom briefly becomes this when she gains the ability to restore reality after the Rumors Arc. During this time she's the most powerful mortal who has ever and will ever exist and a Reality Warper that outclasses Discord himself.
In Pro Hero Metal Bat, Izuku, after many months of training, has gained Super-Strength. It is a downplayed case, as while he is strong enough to crater a hole under the zero-pointer by smashing at its wheels, there are others stronger than him, like All Might. What makes it count is that Izuku has no Quirk, making his strength purely training-based. The next strongest person based only on training is Mirio Togata, who spent years to accomplish less than Izuku has in months. Then he gains strength comparable to if not exceeding All Might, though it is implied to be situational.
Senki Zesshou Symphogear: WXD Unlimited takes Genjuro Kazanari's canonical strength and runs with it, having his Earth Bet counterpart beat Lung to within an inch of his life as well as outright kill Jack Slash when the madman was trying to recruit young Riley Davis into the Slaughterhouse 9.
Seventh Endmost Vision has Aerith Valentine, who was the most powerful of the 1st Class SOLDIER program due to the fic's role-swap premise putting her where Sephiroth normally goes. She's repeatedly mentioned as being the strongest person in the entire war, with only Elfe being mentioned as ever defeating her. Vincent's own POV indicates that he, at least, thought Tifa was able to defeat her, though the fic hasn't established what actually happened during their fight in Nibelheim.
Superwomen of Eva 2: Lone Heir of Krypton: Being half-Kryptonian, Asuka is the world's strongest woman. Even though there're other superheroines around, neither of them is so strong. During a battle, Asuka proves how unbelievably strong she is when she lifts a whole skyscraper.
the superhero game: White Lantern Kyle Rayner is considered to be the "Greatest of all Lanterns", the strongest member of the Era 2 Justice League, and thus, the strongest superhero in the world. When the combined mights of Eras 1 and 2 face off against a brainwashed Kyle at full strength, Jason Todd, their commander, doesn't even entertain the idea of them somehow defeating Kyle in combat and instead hinges victory on giving M'gann enough of an opening to invade Kyle's mind and break the brainwashing.
In Supergirl (2015) fic Survivors, Kara is the Earth's most powerful being by far. Only two men can contest that position, and one of them is her cousin.
Thousand Shinji: Due to her bio-augmentations granted by a War God, Asuka is the strongest human in the world. She can easily crunch bones or rip limbs off with her bare hands.
Ichigo in To Undo it All is strong enough to beat even Yamamoto when they both use bankai, with only the much older man's far superior skill letting him keep up. In Hueco Mundo, Ichigo accidentally forces Yammy to enter Segunda Etapa and still kills him by accident the moment he gets serious.
In Traveler, Lance is acknowledged as the strongest Pokémon trainer in the world. While the First's Rhydon is the strongest non-legendary Pokémon in the world,capable of manipulating stone like an Earthbender. Lance admits that it'd take him and probably at least two other Elite Four members to defeat it and even then he'd fear for their Pokémon.
In Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Supergirl story The Vampire of Steel, Kara is and has been the world's strongest woman for more than one decade.
Paul is definitely this in With Strings Attached, and takes great pride in it. It's one of the "Blessed" parts of being Blessed with Suck.
Harry Potter in Wizard Runemaster is stated to be a mage even stronger than the legendary Medivh by said man's ghost/spirit. Harry has yet to actually reach his full potential, which along with his sense of responsibility has Medivh name him Azeroth's new Guardian.
In Zero 2: A Revision, out of all the Digimons to have existed, Huanglongmon aka the creator of the Guardian Beasts is universally considered to be one of the strongest Digimon to have ever lived, stronger than both Xeedmilleniummon or even Belialmyotismon^note (who is using the Guardian God's Digicore). His sheer power is so great that upon Myotismon's transformation into Huanglongmon both Dragomon and even the Digiknight fears him and it is only when their Digimons sacrifice themselves for the Digiknight does they stood chance against him.

Films — Animation

Hercules due to him being a demigod. Even before he goes through hero training, he's able to hurl a discus past the horizon effortlessly and destroy a town square by accident.
The Incredibles:
- In a world filled to the brim with superheroes and supervillains, Mr. Incredible still manages to stand out. He's so strong and tough that the government had to come up with new definitions to categorize his abilities.
- Brick in Incredibles 2 is the only other super who can match Bob's Super-Strength, but she still lost due to being Dumb Muscle.
Kung Fu Panda has Master Oogway AKA the founder of Kung Fu. His century worth of experience is practically acknowledged and revered by almost everyone while his enemies fear him. Most of the villains that Po and the other Furious Five and Shifu struggles to defeat in the show were at some point in the past curbstomped by him. The only times he almost lost was when he fought the Demon King Ke-Pa after the Demon King avoided fighting him until he was worn out taking down the other Demons, someone who killed Po for a short time and his former friend Kai who were evenly matched in the past before Oogway banished him to the Spirit Realm. While Kai beat Oogway in the present quite easily, it should be noted that Kai had already stolen the chi of every other kung fu master in the spirit world. In fact, Po only got the upper hand against Kai with the combined Chi of every panda in the village along with Tigress and Mr. Ping to even the odds.

Films — Live-Action

Albrecht in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1989).
The Adventures of Captain Marvel film serial of the 1940s stars Captain Marvel, who channels the strength of Hercules, and is the strongest man in the world by virtue of being the only guy shown with out and out superpowers.
DC Extended Universe:
- For all intents and purposes, Clark Kent aka Superman is the world's strongest man, though his strength is matched by other Kryptonians in Man of Steel, in particular Zod, but Supes's strength proved to be greater. It can be argued there's a Deconstruction of this trope with DCEU Superman since Clark is treated as less like The Cape of the comics and more realistically like a Person of Mass Destruction (especially in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice). The only thing that's an actual danger to Superman is the remnants (DNA and atmosphere) of Krypton which can hurt/weaken Clark, as a giant monster (Doomsday) created out of Zod's Kryptonian DNA successfully "kills" Superman... though it's shown a nuke can hurt him too.
- Like in the comics, Diana aka Wonder Woman is DC's strongest Earthling woman; her presence in World War I is enough to quickly turn the tide in Belgium, then in the Final Battle she manages to destroy her brother Ares, the God of War, after discovering she is a Demi-Goddess, using The Power of Love + Lightning to defeat him. In BvS, Diana can hang tough and even incapacitate Doomsday (see above), who killed Superman, and while she is overpowered by Clark in Justice League, Diana is still strong enough for Supes to wordlessly acknowledge and visibly struggle with her strength slightly while fighting her (he was legitimately staggered by her headbutt which given nobody else made him so much flinch the whole movie is most impressive).
Werner Herzog's film Invincible tells the story of Zishe Breitbart, a real-life Polish-Jewish blacksmith known in his time as "The World's Strongest Man." Jouko Ahola, two-time winner of the World's Strongest Man competition, plays him.
In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the title of World's Strongest Man is very alternating, thanks to the ever-changing power chart, though certain characters come to mind.
- Bruce Banner aka the Incredible Hulk is undoubtedly the strongest being from Earth with the only other humans with comparable Super-Strength being Carol Danvers and Abomination. In Hulk's first cinematic outing, the army armed with weapons specifically designed to hurt/capture Banner couldn't even faze him, nor could the Super-Soldier turning himself into a Hulk-like Abomination succeed in defeating the Jolly Green Giant. By the time of The Avengers, Hulk almost singlehandedly stops an alien army, punches a Physical God like Thor around, and then literally wipes the floor with Odin's other son and this installment's Big Bad, Loki, who made the mistake of being in the same room as Hulk (ditto for Ultron). On the flip side, being so strong and nearly uncontrollable makes Banner a risk to society and his fellow Avengers, leading to Hulk leaving Earth after an incident with Scarlet Witch that caused the destruction of an entire city. This is subverted from Thor: Ragnarok onward; while Hulk is much more at home on Skaar with his unmatched strength quickly making him the Grandmaster's Gladiator Champion, he is matched by Hela's undead wolf Fenris and even briefly overpowered by Thor before being beaten utterly by Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War.
- Thor Odinson is likely the strongest male humanoid in the MCU. His strength alone exceeds everyone on Asgard save for his father Odin (and Odin even admitted he has more potential). In The Avengers, he easily destroyed the massive alien Leviathans and was able to fight for much longer than everybody else despite getting stabbed by Loki earlier. While Thor's World's Best Warrior status is also solid, he's still overshadowed by the Hulk despite touting himself as "Strongest Avenger" (though their battle in The Avengers does see Thor generally have the upper hand over Hulk despite not trying to hurt Banner, including a Punch Catch that startles Hulk). However, Thor's claim is given credence when he fully realizes his lightning powers (without his hammer) and wrecks the Hulk. If that wasn't enough, Thor gains a massive power boost with Stormbreaker, a weapon forged by Eitri with the express purpose of killing Thanos. With it, Thor becomes the strongest hero in Infinity War, overpowering Thanos while wielding all six Infinity Stones and mortally wounding him, though it was due to Thanos being caught off-guard. In Endgame, however, Thor has let himself go and isn't quite as strong as he was in Infinity War but even then he can still effectively fight Thanos and dual wield both Stormbreaker and Mjölnir simultaneously. What If? confirms Thor is indeed capable of equaling Captain Marvel in a fight, largely thanks to his centuries of combat experience countering Carol's raw power.
- Speaking of the Mad Titan, Thanos was already specifically stated by one of his allies to be the most powerful being in the universe even before he acquired any of the Infinity Stones, so much so that even the arrogant Loki and Ronan, Big Bads of their respective movies, all would not dare to challenge him despite their tenious alliance, with Ronan only daring to do so after he got one of the Infinity Stones, which even then Korath highly doubted he could win. By the time he gets his hands on the Infinity Gauntlet, by virtue of commanding the ultimate powers of the universe, Thanos became the strongest character in the MCU. According to Bruce Banner, just possessing the Power and Space Stones automatically made Thanos the most powerful being in the universe... and with the rest of the Stones, Doctor Strange says that Thanos "could destroy life on a scale hitherto undreamt of". Thanos lives up to his reputation throughout the movie because not a single hero can overpower him in a straight-up one on one fight (as the Hulk, who he defeated quite easily without any Infinity Stones, Doctor Strange, and Iron Man can attest); it takes a Combination Attack from the Avengers/Guardians of the Galaxy just to briefly incapacitate him, and even this ultimately fails. In Endgame, even without the Gauntlet, Thanos — a younger one who traveled to the present from 2014 — still overpowers Iron Man, Thor with Stormbreaker and Captain America wielding Mjolnir! In a three on one fight, it takes Tony using the Infinity Gauntlet himself to put Thanos down for good. Notably, in another universe, he is stated to be such a threat with 4 of the Infinity Stones that even the Illuminati, consisting of that world's greatest heroes, including Captain Marvel, couldn't beat him without using the Book of Vishanti, and before that, he pushed them so much that Xavier described the entire experience as war and Doctor Strange would go as far as to risk universes in a desperate atempt to defeat him
- Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel may be able to outshine them all, except Wanda. A human enhanced by the power of the Space Stone and a Kree blood transfusion, she can harness her might to fly at the speed of light and is bestowed with sufficient raw strength to take down Thanos's massive ship by herself, effortlessly shrugging of the same weaponry that was severely pressuring the other heroes and warriors on the battlefield. After performing this feat, she duels Thanos on her lonesome and manages to overpower him to such a degree that a direct blow from him fails to even move her, visibly terrifying him in the process and forcing him to rip the Power Stone out of the gauntlet and transfer it to his other fist to finally overpower her. Even then, a direct blow from the Stone itself only manages to temporarily put her out of commission, and she is none the worse for wear by the end of the movie.
- Wanda Maximoff. By Phase 4, she becomes the most powerful Earth-based heroine. While her lack of training and emotional volatility often limit her effectiveness, she is capable of vast-scale destruction with a little bit of focus. In Endgame, she crushes Thanos, breaking his double-bladed sword, and comes seconds away from killing him when Thanos orders an indiscriminate bombardment to get her away from him. The closest match to her in the film is Carol Danvers, whose powers come from the Space Stone. But unlike Carol, who has fully mastered her abilities for as long as Wanda has been alive, Wanda still has a lot of room to learn and fears some of her abilities. And by WandaVision, she is a full-blown Reality Warper whose powers rival those of an Infinity Gauntlet. And the terrifying part is that it's mostly subconscious. Agatha mentions that, according to the Darkhold, the Scarlet Witch is more powerful than even the Sorcerer Supreme. To confirm this Doctor Strange In Multiverse Of Madness sees Wanda personally decimate Kamar-Taj and all the sorcerers defending it before overpowering both Strange and Wong. Then upon entering Universe 838 through possesing her Alternate Self Wanda annihilates The Illuminati, a team consisting of: Mr Fantastic, Black Bolt, Captain Marvel (Maria Rambeu), Captain Carter and even Charles freaking Xaiver, whom together killed Thanos in their universe, though only because they had the Book of Vishanti. In the end it takes Strange tapping into the Darkhold himself and America Chavez's efforts to overpower Wanda and even then, she only really "loses" due to having a Heel Realization and accepting defeat.
The Matrix:
- By the end of the first movie, Neo has complete omnipotence inside the virtual world and forces the previous unbeaten Agents to flee like scared girl scouts. In the next movie, Neo is directly compared to Superman and the Architect explains Neo is unique compared to previous chosen ones thanks to The Power of Love which helped resurrect himself and Trinity later.
- The only character who matches Neo by the end is his Evil Counterpart Agent Smith, thanks to Neo inadvertently turning Smith into a virus. By the Final Battle in The Matrix Revolutions, Neo and Smith are so strong that they completely equal each other and make a near stalemate.
Fezzik, from The Princess Bride, played by André the Giant.
Star Wars has a few Force users that are stated to be the strongest.
- Jedi Grandmaster Yoda was considered to be the strongest Jedi of his time, if not of all time (at least in the Disney Canon continuity), having thousands of years of experience that makes him exceedingly powerful, both with a lightsaber and using the Force. Word of God straight-up describes him as being a Story-Breaker Power to explain his lack of activity. While Anakin Skywalker is described as having had the potential to surpass him, Yoda remained stronger than him in the end due to Anakin never fully living up to his potential. He was able to best the likes of Count Dooku (his former apprentice) singlehandedly, a feat that no one else but Anakin (and that's with him channeling his rage) and Palpatine was ever able to replicate, and can casually overpower, even fatally, numerous enemies whenever he gets into scuffles, situations that tend to give his fellow Jedi a hard time. He's also notable for being the only person who even Darth Sidious is wary of, and while they fought to an inconclusive standstill, Yoda was able to overpower Sidious in both a Blade Lock and a Force struggle, only breaking off the fight when unseen circumstances ultimately forced him to. Notably, he is the only person apart from Sidious who was able to tap into the veil of the Force, the World Between Worlds, freely, but unlike him, he could actually harness it, accessing temples and warping space and reality to talk to fellow Jedi from lightyears away. In The Last Jedi, his Force Ghost is even shown to be capable of affecting the physical world when he calls down a bolt of lightning to strike a tree while giving a pep talk to Luke.
- Emperor Palpatine aka Darth Sidious is the strongest known Sith, as he focused more on the arcane aspects of the Force and using the Force over a lightsaber in general. Either way, he was able to singlehandedly defeat Darth Maul and Savage Oppress, two monstrous individuals, in lightsaber skills while being capable of casually tossing them around with the Force, Force Choke his apprentice Count Dooku from light-years away, and repeatedly manages to force Vader into submission, meaning his title as the strongest Force user remains unchallenged except by Yoda, who is the only person said by Word of God to be capable of contesting him. Although Yoda did come close to beating him (meaning Yoda is at the very least equal to, if not slightly stronger than Palpatine), the fact that Palpatine was able to manipulate even Yoda's perceptions and the greatest Jedi Master ultimately having to abandon the fight left Palpatine unmatched during his reign. His experiments and skills even went so far as to let him be able to tap into the veil of the Force, the World Between Words, which not even the heroes could do without the Force allowing them to. Granted, he could only access it to a limited extent, but that still meant he had partial access to a realm that allows people to traverse and view all of time and space.
  - In The Rise of Skywalker Palpatine's sheer level of strength is displayed by how he's been able to keep a telepathic connection with Ben Solo for decades, which is stated to be able to kill a person as powerful as Rey (even though she had yet to unlock her full strength at the time) and is shown to kill Leia in a matter of seconds (though Leia was already Secret Dying from the damage she sustained in the previous film while in the vacuum of space despite using the Force to save herself). Palpatine's power is such that his clones can't bear it, being left decrepit and withering, and despite being in such a state, he still easily subdues Ben and Rey and drains their lifeforce, afterward becoming powerful enough to disable an entire battle fleet by generating a Force Storm of lightning. Rey does manage to overcome him, but only via harnessing power from all the dead Jedi, and the act of doing so immediately causes her own death.
- Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader can qualify. As The Chosen One, he was touted as being the most powerful person in the galaxy in his prime as Anakin Skywalker, with Lucas (and the novelization of Revenge of the Sith) adding that if Vader hadn't taken a lava bath he would've certainly been this trope. The irony is because Anakin sought to be the most powerful in a misguided attempt to protect his loved ones from death, he lost his status as the child of destiny and became the Handicapped Badass Dragon we know today, never reaching the level where he could have been twice as strong as Palpatine and Yoda's power. Still, the only time we see Vader lose is when he pushes Luke's Berserk Button, leading his enraged son to overpower him. Darth Vader's power is still prevalent 30 years after his death, as Rey causes Kylo's Villainous Breakdown in The Force Awakens when she probes his insecurities and states that no matter what Kylo does he never be as strong as his grandfather, which makes him flip out.
- After the deaths of Yoda, Palpatine, and Vader in Return of the Jedi, Luke takes up the title after having grown stronger through the years, essentially managing to live up to his full potential as Anakin's son. It was specifically stated that Snoke, who easily beat Ben and Rey in individual fights, was defeated by him and left weakened, and Luke was the only person who Snoke feared. And although it ultimately kills him, Luke was able to project himself from several light-years away in his final act, whereas Ben believed just trying would kill Rey, managing to last for a comfortable 30 minutes before he finally couldn't keep it up any longer and died.
- Currently, it can be safely assumed that Rey Skywalker has taken the title. She was born as Palpatine's granddaughter, which makes her exceedingly powerful in terms of potential, even capable of exceeding Palpatine himself in the far future upon growing into her powers fully. At the beginning of her arc, she is untrained in the Force, yet Rey's great strength is already prominent, being able to resist the powers of Kylo Ren, Anakin's grandson, and even overpower him when he's weakened. It's later stated that her potential is no less than the Skywalker-related Leader of the Knights of Ren, and even Luke himself was wary and dreading what she could accomplish if she fell into the Dark Side while Snoke and Palpatine considered her a threat that warranted them to want her dead while they still could. After a year of training by the end of her arc, Rey was able to equally match Ren in terms of Force strength, although Ren being a more experienced fighter ultimately lead him to defeat her with superior skill anyway. After being easily beaten down by Palpatine, Rey is empowered by the spirit of all the Jedi that ever lived and defeats Palpatine even at his most powerful. Although she dies briefly, after coming back, with all the aforementioned characters dead and no other known Force user existing with the same level of raw strength, Rey is currently the most powerful being alive in the franchise.
Dexter Reilly becomes this in the 1975 Disney film The Strongest Man in the World, thanks to a strength formula that he created.
Tall Tale: John Henry, at least according to Pa's tall tales. When he loses the contest against the Steam driver, he gets so mad that when he drives a rail into the rock he's standing on, the whole boulder splits in half.

Literature

The Belgariad:
- The series graces us with a number of phenomenally strong characters — there are so many Big Guys that they actually form their own Five-Man Band of Big Guys, but the knight Mandorallen is something of a standout, crushing a lion to death just by squeezing. Probably one of the most memorable bits, though, is when he was preparing to attack two opposing armies simultaneously, which his companions managed to talk him out of, as they considered it suicidal... although one of them noticed both armies were visibly relieved that he had been called off.
- Honorable mention (at least) to Barak, a berserker of the "turns into an actual bear" variety and pretty strong even in human form.
- On the mystical end, Belgarath has been this for the last seven thousand years, winning or stalemating every magical duel he gets into, and only being surpassed for raw power by his descendant, Belgarion (who's Strong, but Unskilled).
The Chronicles of Amber:
- Gerard, who's effectively the Strongest Man in The Multiverse. Maybe. Ganelon manages to drop him, which the observers react to with varying degrees of surprise. Ganelon passes it off as Gerard being unprepared (and expresses his reluctance to attempt a rematch), but it still seems that Ganelon who is really Oberon, Gerard's father is at least a contender.
- Even so, Gerard may still hold on to the title, since being physically the strongest doesn't necessarily make you the best fighter. In a contest between Gerard and his (half-)brother Benedict, the smart money would not be betting against Benedict, especially if swords or other weapons were involved. At one point during Corwin's struggle to claim the throne of Amber, he confesses that if Benedict expressed a desire for it, he'd give up immediately, because Benedict is just that good (it doesn't hurt that, depending on exactly how you interpret the legal ramifications of what amounts to a cosmic annulment, Benedict may actually have a stronger claim than Corwin; he's certainly the eldest surviving child of Oberon).
In the prehistoric world of The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness, there's Thiazzi, the mage of the Oak Clan. He's strong enough to move a sedated polar bear and a boulder five times his large size. How unfortunate he's also a manipulative mage as well as the most violent and sadistic of the major antagonists.
While it's not stated outright in the novels, Conan the Barbarian might as well be this for his time; the only things he encounters that are unequivocally stronger than him aren't human. Of course, he runs into a lot of those.
Harry Potter:
- Albus Dumbledore is considered by many to be the strongest wizard alive. Both Dark Wizards who were around in his time, Gellert Grindelwald and Lord Voldemort, feared him and only him. Dumbledore lived up to his title as he defeated Grindelwald even with Grindelwald's magic empowered by the Elder Wand, which was one of the few times that wand ever lost in a fair fight. Even in his older age, he dueled Lord Voldemort to a stalemate and drove him to retreat - indeed, while the film version had it be a much more even fight with Dumbledore struggling at points, the book version had him chatting pleasantly with Voldemort while dispatching a construct after Bellatrix (a very powerful witch in her own right) and others to protect Harry and get help, casually no-selling more or less everything Voldemort throws at him and nonchalantly responding to Voldemort's sneer that he's too weak to go for the lethal move by saying that killing him wouldn't satisfy him. The only thing Voldemort does that legitimately worries him is try and possess Harry. Additionally, he is still able to effortlessly deliver a Curb-Stomp Battle to multiple groups of powerful wizards and witches, using spells capable of causing great destruction as if it's naturally easy and like using normal spells, the most notable of which being a Firestorm capable of defeating an entire army of Inferi while Dumbledore was in a weakened state. Not to mention how he can overcome Voldemort's best protective efforts in hiding his Horcruxes and goes as far as to say even if he were captured and sent to the notoriously secure Azkaban, he would be able to easily escape as none of it's wardings would be strong enough to hold him! It's telling that his death is a Thanatos Gambit on his part to help keep up the facade of Snape's loyalty to Voldemort (that, and Dumbledore was already dying of powerful (read: painful) curse, and thus Snape killing him was considered a Mercy Kill).
- That said, Gellert Grindelwald can also be considered a viable candidate for the status of having the greatest amount of power, at least with the Elder Wand, as Dumbledore described that he surpassed Grindelwald in skill alone and barely at that and in terms of power, they were about even. The Fantastic Beasts series all but confirms he is power wise comparable to Dumbledore. Like his old friend, Grindelwald's strength is enough to effortlessly dispatch groups of powerful wizards and witches by handing out powerful spells with a natural ease and one of his strongest spells, Protego Diabolica, proved to be nigh-invincible and unstoppable, requiring Newt and Theseus Scamander, both being exceptional wizards, just to briefly halt it at bay, easily killing Leta Lestrange with a single move, and just by releasing the spell upon Paris, but doing nothing more and simply leaving it after having manipulated it in his anger, he gave five powerful wizards, including the centuries years old Nicolas Flamel, a lot of trouble to stop the spell from destroying Paris. Not only that, just like Dumbledore's nonchalant confidence that he would be too powerful to be held in Azkaban, Grindelwald is all but confirmed to be capable of escaping MACUSA's prison, the magical spell binding him not even suppressing his ability to incinerate a fly with just a gaze of his eyes, and when he does escape, which he would have been able to do even without the help of his acolyte, he goes as far as to casually destroy one of the wands of his imprisoners, a feat stated to be quite difficult.
- The youngest of the viable contenders is He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, Lord Voldemort. Dumbledore refers to Voldemort in both the films and books as "the most dangerous Dark Wizard of all time" whose "knowledge of magic is perhaps more extensive than any wizard alive." Additionally, Dumbledore says Voldemort was probably "the most brilliant student Hogwarts has ever seen." Additional accolades come from Rita Skeeter, who also refers to him as the most dangerous Dark Wizard ever, and Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge who proclaims Voldemort as "one of the most powerful wizards of all time." Voldemort's magical feats are commensurate with his reputation: in combat, he murders legendary duelists such as Amelia Bones and Mad-Eye Moody, and even defeats the supremely skilled Minerva McGonagall, Horace Slughorn, and Kingsley Shacklebolt at the same time when his powers are rendered nonlethal. Perhaps most impressively, he duels Albus Dumbledore to a stalemate in the Department of Ministries even when Dumbledore is wielding the full power of the Elder Wand. He's also able to fly without aid, violating Magical Law; hex Hogwarts' Defense Against the Dark Arts position to such an extent Dumbledore is unable to break it, and curse the Gaunt ring such that it proved fatal to Dumbledore.
I Stopped Working Because I Was Expelled From The Hero’sParty After They Denounced Me as a Coward has Nicola, a martial artist who is extremely fond of dirty tactics to win fights, such as a Groin Attack. He is also, legitimately, capable of beating the Hero (a warrior officially recognized as the strongest in all non-demon nations) in a fair fight with one finger while also under the handicaps of having his power reduced to 1/3 of its full potential and using the fight as a lesson for his current apprentice.
Jean Valjean of Les Misérables is not established as actually being the world's strongest man, but he is so unusually strong that in all his life Javert has never seen any other person possess such strength, which is what causes him to recognize Valjean. Interestingly, Valjean is also about as far as you can get from being a meathead.
Saval Bork of the Matador Series is established from the first book to be the strongest recorded man in the known universe. However, in Brother Death, he meets Brother Mkono, an assassin who's even stronger than him. After much existential angst, he remembers that he's also trained in the universe's most deadly martial art and proceeds to dismantle his opponent.
Mr. Strong of Mr. Men fame.
In The NeverEnding Story, the knight Hykrion claims to be the strongest in the world. Another knight named Hero Hynreck defeats him one-on-one with superior strength. Then, Hynreck himself is thoroughly outmuscled by the real strongest man in Fantasia, Bastian himself, who had used AURYN to give himself godlike strength.
The Nameless Narrator of The Night Land is stronger than anyone he has ever encountered, and performs some truly incredible feats of endurance and strength (running for three days in full armor while carrying his girlfriend, for example).
Pippi Longstocking from the books of the same name is the strongest girl in the world. Amongst other things, she can lift her horse singlehanded. She gets it from her father, who may be the strongest man in the world, but she's got stronger than him by their reunion.
Fezzik in The Princess Bride, a Turkish Gentle Giant who nonetheless works for a time as The Brute before his Heel–Face Turn. However, although he's certainly the strongest character we see, the narration notes that what's special about Fezzik isn't his strength, but the ridiculous stamina in his arms — tell him to chop down a forest and the axe will break or his legs will fold beneath him before his arms get tired. This is how he manages to climb the Cliffs of Insanity with three people on his back.
Grettir of the Old Icelandic Saga of Grettir the Strong has the reputation of being the strongest man of Iceland.
The Silmarillion:
- Melkor is the mightiest being on the world, able to wage war against all the other Valar, collectively the mightiest beings on the world who are capable of breaking apart and remaking Arda at will, all at once, by himself, and was winning until Tulkas descended upon the planet. Even after Melkor is literally evicted from the planet his will lingers, sowing discord among its creatures until the end of days.
- Tulkas is an interesting case, as he isn't even the third mightiest Valar, but he is the physically strongest. Melkor can manipulate temperature, ice, fire, anything shrouded in darkness, the darkness itself, create powerful storms, change beings more to his likeness, create deadly plagues... but if Tulkas gets his hands on Melkor there isn't anything Melkor can do about it. What's more, Melkor became something of a Dirty Coward after Tulkas proved he was beatable and Tulkas is also the fastest of the Valar, so an instant of Melkor cowering rather than acting is enough for Tulkas to beat him again. More still, every Valar needs to rest after using their super powers or their might will start to diminish, every Valar except Tulkas, who never tires. This is part of Melkor's undoing, as he doesn't physically tire, and so continually wreaks havok in the world without allowing his might to recover. The only times Melkor rests are when the rest of the Valar bind him, blind him and leave him in solitary confinement.
- If Ungoliant, a being shrouded in mystery from Parts Unknown, did not surpass Melkor as the mightiest being on the world as his might diminished, she did when she drained the life and light of the world trees and transformed from the shape of a Giant Spider to one defying description. However, like Melkor Ungoliant was a dirty coward who would not so much as tap the land of the Valar if Melkor wasn't with her and retreated back to parts unknown after she learned Melkor's balrogs could produce fire capable of hurting her, even in her transformed state.
- After the Valar, the next mightiest beings are the Maiar, who were called to regulate aspects of the planet the Valar couldn't be bothered with after they were done shaping it. The mightiest of these is Arien, who eventually surpasses Melkor in might as his is diminished corrupting other Maiar into balrogs, elves into orcs, raising dragons, etc. Fortunately for him she's too busy keeping Arda and the sun in alignment to actively oppose him, though most of Melkor's creatures are repelled by sunlight, so she's still a hindrance he has to work around. Originally though, the strongest Maia was Mairon...who eventually became Sauron: but, like Melkor, made the mistake of not resting between uses of his powers. He's also less physically strong, and more magically strong: so when he decides to get into a physical fight, he usually loses even to beings supposedly much lower than him on the power hierarchy.
- Outside of the ancient beings from before the world, the elf Fëanor was the mightiest who ever lived, but he gets himself killed making war on Melkor. The only other planet born creatures coming close to him had Divine Parentage, were Touched by Vorlons, or had tools blessed by the Valar.
- However, Tolkien makes a distinction between might and strength. The strongest elf, is Angrod the second son of Finarfin (and older brother of Galadriel). His mother named him Angamaitë for the strength of his grip when he was a baby. His feats of strength are alluded to in the text, but no specifics are given. Note that he is NOT the mightiest warrior: that's Fingolfin, the elf who dueled Morgoth and wounded him eight times. But Angrod was evidently considered enough of a threat that Morgoth decided to eliminate him with fire, rather than try to send a lieutenant to kill him. Like the rest of his siblings, Angrod is also stunningly beautiful and very kind: and is only less intelligent compared to his unusually wise siblings Finrod and Galadriel. In all versions he is the only son of Finarfin who married during the Years of the Trees, in some versions Orodreth is their son and Gilgalad their grandson. In other versions, Orodreth is Angrod's brother. Angrod is also contrasted against his brother Aegnor who is The Berserker.
- Among plain human beings, the mightiest to ever live was Húrin Thalion, who was curiously very short, much shorter than his father, wife, and son. Still, he had the strength to slay Melkor's trolls in single motions and the toughness to endure the caustic blood of theirs that eventually ate away at the ax he was using, making him the Sole Survivor when the Sons of Hador made their Last Stand against Melkor's army.
A Song of Ice and Fire:
- Ser Gregor Clegane is freakishly large and strong. He stands almost eight feet tall and wields a greatsword with one hand; he only uses it for battle and sparring, since outside it he can pop a man's skull with his bare hands and has. While mounted, he makes even the largest destrier look undersized, earning him the name "The Mountain That Rides." His abnormal dimensions apparently cause him frequent migraines that drive him into a constant state of rage.
- It's less emphasized, but it's hinted that Robert Baratheon qualified for this position during his Glory Days. He swung around a massive warhammer few people could even lift properly and was known for turning soldiers' torsos into paste if he struck true, no matter how thick their breastplate. He was also a fierce and spirited warrior back then, who put every last bit of this strength into his Rebellion, and ended up winning it more or less by himself. Age, fatness, and sheer, unrelenting distaste for his unwanted promotion to king led to severe decay in this regard, though he can still use that warhammer pretty decently.
- The current top contender for World's Strongest Woman is probably Brienne of Tarth, who would be abnormally large and strong even for a man in the martial culture of the Seven Kingdoms. She is hinted at being a descendant of Ser Duncan the Tall, a famous seven-foot warrior featured in the series' companion short stories Tales of Dunk and Egg.
In Star Wars Legends, the New Republic and New Jedi Order era novels have Luke Skywalker, who has grown more powerful in the time since Return of the Jedi and has learned new Force abilities. He's been stated to be the most powerful Jedi of all time and his power surpasses that of even Yoda and other Jedi from different eras. He was able to fight on par with a resurrected Palpatine who could create Force Storms to destroy space and time, defeat multiple Yuuzhan Vong and their leader, and even use the Force to move an artificial Black Hole. The only being that's stronger than him is Abeloth.
In The Wheel of Time, Rand al'Thor inherits this status from his previous incarnation, Lews Therin Telamon, as the Dragon Reborn, being the most powerful channeler in the series full stop - he's technically matched by Elan Morin Tendrai a.k.a. Ishamael a.k.a. Moridin, the Nae'blis, but Rand can go one step beyond him and challenge the Dark One, the literal embodiment of evil, directly and is actually capable of destroying him, though he doesn't as he comes to realise that without evil and therefore the ability to choose it, there would be no free will, resulting in a Crapsaccharine World - a possibility that leads the Dark One to tauntingly ask what the difference between them is - and instead rams it back into its can and re-seals it with its own power.

Live-Action TV

Spoofed with Artie from The Adventures of Pete & Pete. Yes, he is pretty strong, but it's by the Pete's standards, and we don't know if he's simply crazy or not. His on-camera feats include hitting a golf ball 300,003 yards, pushing a house to the left an inch (he wanted to knock it over, but he had strained a muscle earlier while lifting a brassiere emporium), rolling a bowling ball from whatever state Wellsville is in into Canada, skipping a stone on Neptune, and leaping across the city in a single jump.
Arrowverse: Played with in regards to the heroes, as there's three contenders:
- In the main universe alone, Barry Allen is likely this, with the applications of Super-Speed granting him a great deal of power that makes him probably unmatched on the side of good. Even before achieving full mastery over his powers, he is still more than capable of taking out other Metahumans and while he struggles and even loses to particularly unique and powerful ones at first, when he learns how to fight them, he usually tends to quickly turn the tides. Recurringly, Barry also tends to be overwhelmed by other speedsters as they are much more experienced than him, but his raw potential quickly allows him to catch up and surpass his enemies. ^note
- Including the Earth-38 residents (who now inhabit Earth-1 after the Crisis), Kara Danvers/Supergirl is the most powerful hero; when the various heroes team up, she easily curbstomps everyone (except Barry) in training, and when she herself is brainwashed by the Dominators, only Barry could fight her on even ground, and even then he couldn't do anything to actually harm her (the only technique he had that possibly could, the lightning throw, she tanked). In her Season 2 finale, she battles her cousin, Superman, after he's brainwashed, and he admits after he was fighting at full strength and she still managed to beat him (something he's actually happy about). However, this is largely because the actual most powerful hero...
- J'onn J'onzz, who Clark previously identifies as the most powerful being on the planet, is often forced to step aside thanks to some plot convenience as he's simply too powerful ^note, and the few times we see him fight, he's often holding back or about to fall victim to The Worf Effect. When we see him fight without holding back however, he utterly curbstomps Kara in seconds, and after being infected with White Martian blood, he easily overpowers the Cyborg Superman, who had previously been shown capable of beating Kara unconscious.
- For a time, Mar Novu aka the Monitor held the title through the entire Multiverse. With numerous vast cosmic powers that he acquired from being exposed to cosmic radiation, he is literally a Physical God and easily defeats any of the heroes attempting to challenge him in Elseworlds (2018). However, he loses that title when the Anti-Monitor arrives in Crisis on Infinite Earths (2019). Far more powerful than Novu, Mobius is a Physical God as well, only with contrastingly different abilities to Novu, capable of manipulating Antimatter and destroying entire worlds. He defeats all the heroes at the climax with ease, kills Novu without much effort, and succeeds in destroying the Multiverse. Even in a weakened state, he is still too much for the heroes to beat in direct combat and requires them to use a surprise shrinking bomb to permanently get rid of him, as he can't be killed for good.
- That said, the real title of "Arrowverse's Strongest Being" currently falls to whoever has the title of the Spectre apparently. Described as channeling the entire Multiverse, Oliver Queen as the Spectre proved to be more powerful than Mobius and was able to destroy his physical form and leave him extremely weakened while simultaneously undoing his destruction of the Multiverse.
The Boys (2019):
- Homelander is the most powerful Superhero in the world, and has a reputation for being unkillable. Madelyn Stillwell states "there isn't a weapon on Earth they haven't thrown at him that's worked". Whether this includes nuclear weapons or any kind of WMD isn't outright mentioned. If Homelander has any kind of physical weakness, it is as of yet unknown.
- Before Homelander, Soldier Boy was the strongest Supe in the world. Even in today's time he is one of the only people capable of actually hurting Homelander and with his new upgrade from his time being experimented on by the Russians, he can now cause incredibly destructive explosions and even De-Power other Supes. The finale of Season 3 shows that Soldier Boy eclipses his supposedly superior successor in terms of raw physical abilities. He's able to choke him out and the audience can hear Homelander desperately trying to punch his way free, yet Soldier Boy isn't even tickled.
- The title of World's Strongest Woman fittingly goes to Wonder Woman-expy Queen Mauve, despite her lacking the flashy powers of Homelander, Soldier Boy, Starlight, A-Train or Stormfront. In Season 2, she's able to overpower Black Noir saving Starlight's life and later in the finale pulls a Big Damn Heroes againist the previously dominating Stormfront with her arrival being a Oh, Crap! moment for Stormfront that turns tide of the battle againist her. In Season 3, Mauve is indeed able to fight Homelander and even make him bleed by jamming a metal rod into his ear and is literally the only other Supe capable of matching him and Soldier Boy in strength.
Buffyverse:
- By the end of Season 7 and into Season 8, Buffy is the strongest Slayer and enhanced human female character (though she technically falls short of Illyria below). Buffy has defeated the likes of The Master, The Mayor, ADAM (with help), Glory, The First Evil and even becomes a Flying Brick in the Season 8 comic.
- Illyria from Angel Season 5 is the strongest female character and in this series, that's saying something. Technically speaking, she's an Eldritch Abomination forced into the body of a human, which makes her a Humanoid Abomination, but nevertheless she stands above the rest of the cast in terms of power. In one of her first scenes, Illyria stops time and then in a later episode she kills the half the cast before reality is rewritten. From then on Illyria is depowered i.e still godly strong but she can't mess with time and space.
- Marcus Hamilton, fittingly played by the towering Adam Baldwin, is by the far the strongest person at the end of the TV franchise thanks to being second only to the Senior Partners. Hamilton's Super-Strength is so great he actually beats up the abovementioned Illyria (though admittedly she was weakened), then he no sells Angel's attacks... until Angel drinks his blood.
- TV-wise, Angel is the strongest Vampire by the end of the series, outstripping the likes of The Master and even defeated The Beast who's much stronger than any Slayer. Though Angel did outright lose to Spike (who's still the World's Best Warrior according to Buffy) in a straight fight but it's evident Angel's heart wasn't in the fight and at all other times and with proper motivation he can mop the floor with Spike... even as a puppet (though, granted, Spike was laughing too hard to put up much of a fight on that occasion).
Game of Thrones: Even in comparison to the show's other hulking badasses, such as Hodor and Tormund, the Mountain is insanely strong. Fittingly, as of the fourth season, he's played by the second-strongest man on Earth (who, as noted in the Real Life section, would later go on to claim the #1 spot). After Qyburn's treatment, he seems to be even stronger — but he's not exactly human anymore.
In Stranger Things Season 4 Big Bad Henry Creel aka One aka Vecna is the strongest character in The 'Verse being a mutant who was born with natural Psychic Powers. He's so powerful, The Government used him a progenitor of a whole bunch of Psychic Children and had to surgically implant a Power Limiter to prevent him killing everyone. The only one who rivals Henry is Eleven, who thanks to the teachings he himself imparted could overpower Henry and banish him to the Upside Down. In their rematch however Henry proves to be greater (having become a Humanoid Abomination), able to unlike El leviate numerous objects at once and beats her outright in their Battle in the Center of the Mind fight. El only regains the upperhand thanks to the Power of Love through Mike's words leaving Henry's phyiscal form open for Nancy, Steve and Robin bombarding him with Moltovs and More Dakka, though he walks off even that. Henry's overall power is reflected in the fact, he's seemingly the one who created the Mind Flayer Eldritch Abomination of Season 2 and Season 3.
Get Smart:
- In "The Greatest Spy on Earth", Maxwell Smart and 99 encounter Hando, the circus strongman. He's so strong he can lift a locomotive with one hand, crush diamonds with his teeth, and stop a four engine plane from taking off... by breaking the pilot's legs.
- In "Survival of the Fattest", the Villain of the Week is Mary Armstrong, a KAOS agent who is the world's strongest female secret agent.
Damaras of Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger has the title "The Strongest Man in the Universe". When he finally goes into action against the Gokaigers, it shows us that he deserves it.
Kamen Rider:
- Kamen Rider Kuuga: N-Daguva-Zeba, the leader of the Grongi race, is also so far above its other members that where the rest of them are superpowered serial killers that menace Tokyo, Daguva is capable of cracking the planet open if he so desires. The only other character that can match his strength is Kuuga himself in his Ultimate Form.
- Kamen Rider Build: Evolt, the Big Bad of the series, is an alien super-soldier whose Transformation Trinket was reverse-engineered into the title character's, but the copy doesn't hold a candle to the original. Even in a nearly-dead state and forced to possess a human host, Evolt can erase people's memories or completely reshape their appearances, not to mention he has enough physical strength to casually twist a tablet into a backscratcher. At full power, he can devour planets, regenerate from a single cell, and defeat all four Riders at the same time without breaking a sweat. Evolt is so far beyond every other character in the series that the only solution the heroes can find to beat him is to trick him into accepting an upgrade that makes him even more powerful, but is secretly Blessed with Suck in a way that lets them turn his own power back on him and use it to rewrite reality so he never existed.
- Kamen Rider Zi-O: The title character is a Time Master whose most powerful form, Oma Zi-O, combines all of the powers of every other Kamen Rider past, present, and future. The result is that he's functionally omnipotent: in the only fight that he ever takes seriously, Oma Zi-O slaughters nearly the entire pantheon of previous Rider Final Bosses^noteincluding both of the above examples in less than a minute, using only a single punch each. The catch is that the timeline in which Sougo becomes Oma Zi-O is also the one in which he becomes an Evil Overlord and rules the world with an iron fist, so everyone else hero and villain alike is trying to prevent it from happening.
In the all-but-forgotten Saturday morning comedy series The Kids from C.A.P.E.R., small-statured Bugs had immense strength, as long as he could see his hands. Another "kryptonite" for him was the word bananas, which caused him to have hysterics for several minutes.
Willy Armitage from Mission: Impossible was literally the world's strongest man, as his dossier from the early seasons stated that he had once set the world weightlifting record, which was why the IMF recruited him for the pilot episode — they needed somebody who could carry a suitcase that contained a grown man inside without any outside observers being able to tell how heavy it was. Episodes in which he wasn't required to move heavy objects generally had him serve as an assistant to one of the other team members.
Nadine from Twin Peaks is already pretty strong earlier in the series (she involuntarily mangles a steel rail with her bare hands), but after she comes back in her "perky schoolgirl" persona on recovering from her overdose the gloves really come off. In the school gym, she's seen leg-pressing unfeasible amounts of weight without effort, to the astonishment of the watching jocks, and in a touch-down celebration she gleefully whirls the hunky quarterback round in her arms, before, forgetting her own strength, she flings him what appears to be about a hundred feet through the air.
The blink-and-it's-gone goofy '80s fantasy-comedy Wizards & Warriors had The Hero's sidekick Marko, the "strongest man in the kingdom" who often performed clearly superhuman feats in keeping with the show's over-the-top nature.
Ultra Series:
- Ultraman King is the strongest entity in the M78 universe. From exposing Alien Babarue in Ultraman Leo, to stopping Ultraman Belial where all others failed in the backstory to Mega Monster Battle: Ultra Galaxy Legends, to fusing with the whole freaking universe at the start of Ultraman Geed to stop the universe's destruction, to stopping Absolute Tartarus's planet-busting Absolute Maximum Destruction in Ultra Galaxy Fight: The Destined Crossroad, his power is leagues beyond anyone else in the setting.
- Ultraman Nexus has Nexus's true form, Ultraman Noa. Supplementary materials reveal that he traveled to the M78 universe in the backstory, stopped Dark Zagi from destroying the Land of Light, cast Dark Zagi back into his home universe, and sealed the rift that Zagi traveled through with his Noa The Final at the cost of most of Noa's energy. Later on, he revives a fallen Ultraman Zero and gives the Ultra the Ultimate Aegis, armor based on Noa's own dimension-traveling Noa Aegis. Just to drive the point home, Noa's own Insert Song portrays him as a Messianic Archetype.
Noa, a promise passed across the ages
The miracle messenger, Noa!

Myths & Religion

The Bible:
- Jacob got his alternate name "Israel" (the exact meaning is not clear, but one possibility is "struggles with God") after an all-night wrestling match. At dawn, the man/angel (in some interpretations, God Himself) asks Jacob to release him, and gives him the new name. Jacob's strength is never particularly remarked on outside this incident, though, and it's at least implied that the contest was really more about stubbornness/mental strength than physical strength.
- Also, and in a much more tangible sense, Hot-Blooded Samson, one of the Judges of Israel. His Dying Moment of Awesome involves collapsing a building upon himself and everyone else inside, and he had quite the body count against the Philistines.
Hercules in Classical Mythology is not only stronger then every man, he's stronger than the other gods too.
Older Than Dirt: Gilgamesh, the first recorded epic hero, of The Epic of Gilgamesh.
In Japanese folklore, Nurarihyon is known as the most powerful of all youkai and the commander of the Hyakki Yakou. So what has earned him that fame? No one knows. Aside from breaking into people's houses and acting like he owns the place (which no one, not even the actual owners, ever even thinks of questioning until he has left), he never really does anything. Though very little aside from this is known about him, one has to admit that it is quite impressive that all of Japan's unruly spirits obey him.
Bhima in the Mahabharata. When he was two, his mother dropped him by accident on a stone and the stone broke. Keep in mind, he was two.
Norse Mythology:
- Magni, who had the combined strength of both parents at the age of two. For the record, his parents were a giantess and Thor.
- In one legend, Thor kills a giant who then falls on top of him, and none of the other gods can free Thor from under the giant until Magni arrives. Magni is "three nights old" when he lifts the giant's foot from Thor's neck. It may perhaps be worth noting that the name Magni literally means "Mighty."
Omobe in Yoruba tradition, who was able to force his way into the spirit world and proved strong enough to best some of the orishas (equivalent to gods or angels) in wrestling matches.

Pro Wrestling

This is pretty much a stock wrestling character. During his long WWE run, Mark Henry was billed as the World's Strongest Man; apparently he was a winner of several Strongest Man competitions as well as an Olympic weightlifter, and he is the current world record holder for the ungeared squat at 430 kg. Previous World's Strongest Men include Bill Kazmaier (who also won a few Strongest Man competitions, and came to the ring holding a giant inflatable globe to evoke images of Atlas) and Ken Patera (who was an Olympic weightlifter). And let's not forget one of the first with this billing, Ted Arcidi.
1890-1910 wrestler Josie Wahlford, aka Minerva, the first pro wrestler ever known to be called a "world champion"(though Cora Livingston is more widely accepted as the first), was also a circus strongwoman listed in Guinness World Records for the most weight ever lifted by a woman at 3000 lbs. Now it involved 18 men on a platform connected to a harness, but if that counts as an assisted lift 3000 lbs is still 3000 lbs. Incidentally, in weightlifting competitions and the circus she was billed as the world's strongest.
Al Szasz and his wife Ada Ash were billed as the strongest man and woman in the world. Ash would prove her strength by breaking 2X4s with her bare hands, removes spikes from them with her teeth and then driving them into new pieces of wood, also with her teeth. And Szasz would pull motor vehicles attached to ropes and chains with his teeth while Ash was ontop of them. They also happened to be more famous for wrestling alligators and bears than for other human beings. Ash never won a title belt. Szasz won title belts in the light heavyweight and junior heavyweight divisions of California and Portland, but his great strength wasn't enough to make up for his height at 5'7" and let him have much success against heavyweights.
Doug Furnas, a Knoxville, Tennessee football player who made his pro wrestling debut ripping a door off of a cage. He continued to be billed as such during his brief WCW and SMW days.
The late Dino Bravo in WWE, though being a heel, he was usually billed as the Self-Proclaimed World's Strongest Man. And sometimes he was billed as Canada's Strongest Man. Guess sometimes people just need more realistic goals...
The first WrestleCrap book posited that any wrestler using this moniker will inevitably fail, especially if used to promote weightlifters who cannot actually wrestle (which is often the case). In Mark Henry's case, it took a decade for him to overcome this curse (and the curse of atrocious booking) to finally make the gimmick work with his "Hall of Pain" run.
The Iron Sheik is legendary in strongman circles thanks to his Persian Clubs challenge. 75 lbs. may not sound like much, but swinging that much weight on what is essentially a lever is extremely difficult. Mark Henry was the only wrestler to beat the challenge.
While the weight's been surpassed, at the time Bruno Sammartino had bench pressed more weight than anyone else in recorded history, earning him the moniker "The Italian Superman."
Magnitude Kishiwada is billed as "The Strongest Man in Osaka". Although he is pretty small in stature to the gimmick standards, he has a real powerlifting background, and is exceptionally strong for his size.
Claudio Castagnoli, better known as Cesaro, was billed during his WWE run as being "pound for pound, the strongest superstar in the WWE." Zeb Colter insisted Antonio Cesaro was the strongest man in the world but the rest of the roster had their doubts.
Determining just who is the strongest man in the world was the stated purpose of Akira Maeda's Fighting Network RINGS, a shoot wrestling promotion turned mixed martial arts.

Tabletop Games

The Deities And Demigods book of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons gives Magni (mentioned in Mythology above) the maximum possible strength score of 25 and says that there is "nothing he cannot bend, nothing he cannot break, and nothing he cannot lift". This ability is explicitly stated to apply even to things which are otherwise unliftable, such as his father's hammer.
The Emperor of Warhammer 40,000 was the strongest and most powerful human ever to live. He possessed physical strength far beyond any human and he was also the greatest psyker ever. Most of the few other beings in the setting with power rivalling The Emperor are gods.

Visual Novels

Danganronpa has Kenshiro, an undefeated martial artist with a Heroic Build (prior to developing a terminal illness) who earned the title of the "strongest person in the world". His girlfriend was Sakura Ogami, the world's strongest woman whose skills earned her the title of Ultimate Martial Artist with Kenshiro being the one person she couldn't defeat. After he fell ill, he passed his title onto her.
Fate Series:
- Fate/stay night:
  - Gilgamesh is quite firmly established as the strongest being in the story by a HUGE margin. Word of God even confirms that he would be able to take on all the Servants and Masters at the same time and easily win. And while a small handful of stronger entities exist in the Nasuverse, Gilgamesh is the strongest regular Servant as well as the strongest that isn't an out-and-out god or Eldritch Abomination.
  - As far as physical power goes, 5th War Berserker (Heracles) is on top, bar none — rank A+ strength and A for endurance and agility even outside Mad Enhancement, which would have added an additional rank on top of those had it ever been used. Until Gilgamesh shows up to mess with the war, Berserker is the biggest obstacle to anyone else winning, and certainly fulfills the spirit of the trope if not its literal truth.
  - Heroic Spirits' power can potentially be much greater than what they were in life (which is saying something because many were very explicitly superhuman to begin with), based on the age and the fame of their legend. Gilgamesh's legend is the oldest heroic tale on Earth, so in addition to granting him great power on the basis of age, this status pretty much makes his fame self-reinforcing. And Heracles is the most famous hero, period. Heroic Spirits also get even greater strength if they're fighting on the "home turf" of their legend, meaning Gilgamesh would be stronger in Mesopotamia and Heracles in Greece. Though Fate/stay night took place in Japan, which was pretty much neutral ground for the Servants who got summoned ^note but all of this muddies the waters about which Servant really is the World's Strongest Man.
- Fate/Grand Order:
  - The Cosmos in the Lostbelt storyline introduces the Kings of the Lostbelts. Each one is so titled because they were determined by the Tree of Emptiness within their respective Lostbelts to be the most powerful living beings within it, bar none. Even the weaker ones among their numbers such as Ivan the Terrible or Qin Shi Huang have the capacity to devastate entire countries and continents with their power. The strongest ones can destroy the entire planet with only some level of effort, with it being indicated they could wreck the whole solar system and beyond going all out.
  - Fate/Grand Order also introduces the concept of Grand Servants. The Grand Servants are the absolute strongest of their respective Class and they are meant to be summoned against threats against humanity while the regular Servants are meant to be mere backup. Grand Servants are granted bodies much more powerful than regular Servants. There can be multiple candidates for the position, but there can only be one filling the position at a time. It is also noted that Servants with Divinity are barred from the position, meaning that Servants like Karna, Gilgamesh and Heracles are barred from these titles despite being otherwise the most powerful Servants of their classes. The first arc introduces Grand Caster, Solomon, with Merlin and Gilgamesh named as potential candidates, as well as the Grand Assassin, the first person to hold the title of Hassan-i-Sabbah. The second arc reveals that the Grand Archer and Grand Lancer are previously introduced Servants, Orion, unconstrained by Artemis hijacking his vessel, and Romulus, fully unleashing his normally suppressed divinity. Romulus becomes Grand Lancer despite being a god through the loophole that he used to be human and is still greatly connected to humanity. The arcade version of the game reveals that the Grand Rider is Noah, builder of the Ark.
- ORT, first introduced in Tsukihime and first properly encountered in FGO, is perhaps the single strongest entity in the entire Nasuverse, able to absolutely kill anything and everything that is thrown at it. For reference, its first arrival in the distant past of the Seventh Lostbelt has it utterly annihilate all life on Earth save for one. Before their exctinction, the rest of humanity sacrificed themselves to empower Camazotz, who was then elevated as the new Beast I. The death bat struggled for millions of years, going mad in the process, and eventually managed to separate ORT from its heart, causing it to go dormant. It was not the promised time yet so ORT was actually at its weakest (represented in-game by having it be Level 1). When it does actually wake up, fighting it is a long, uphill struggle that sees your mightiest allies die and is only made possible because the aforementioned heart (the Lostbelt King, Kukulkan) allied with Chaldea.
In Majikoi! Love Me Seriously!, they're only high school students, but...
- Momoyo is considered a "god of martial arts" and is pretty much the strongest person in the world by the beginning of the game;
- Mayucchi's father told the Prime Minister of Japan that his daughter had already surpassed him in skill. Mayucchi's father just so happens to be the current Sword Saint, a.k.a. the strongest swordsman in the world;
- Though she doesn't get many chances to show off, Miyako is a skilled enough archer to be counted as one of the "Five Bows Under Heaven";
- And finally, there's the "Four Sky Kings" that Momoyo belongs to, of which Ageha is also a member. Tsubame, one of the new heroines in the sequel, makes her cameo early as a member in the anime. Mayucchi also gains this distinction at the end of her path via Klingon Promotion.

Web Animation

ATTACK on MIKA features the two-parter story of Katsuya Shishida, a former delinquent who was the top-cat of Shingeki High School since he never lost a fight. However, he decided to turn a new leaf and become a proper student.
Homestar Runner:
- Pom Pom, as depicted in "The Homestar Runner Enters the Strongest Man in the World Contest". In the original book, he offered to share with Homestar, who was disqualified.
- Strong Mad isn't billed as "The Strongest Man in the World," but he's definitely one of, if not the, strongest people in the Homestar Runner universe. He can knock people halfway across Free Country, USA with one punch, and has also kicked a kickball so hard it flew all the way around the world and hit him from behind.

Web Comics

The premise of Dragon Ball Multiverse is pitting the strongest fighters of the multiverse against each other in a tournament, meaning there's a World's Strongest Man in each universe relative to the other beings they reside with.
- Universe 18: As it follows Toriyama's intended canon from the end of the manga, Gohan is still the strongest fighter even with Goku, Vegeta, and Uub training for years.
- Universe 16: Since the only difference between Universe's 16 and 18 is Vegito remaining fused, it's Vegito who's the strongest of his universe instead of Gohan.
- Universe 4: Super Buu (nicknamed "Zen" Buu by the fandom) defeated and absorbed the heroes of Earth, then moved on the do the same to the rest of Universe 4. He's more or less a Reality Warper of some degree now, and may in fact be the strongest in the multiverse outright.
- Universe 1: The South Supreme Kai is still the most powerful, but it's even more pronounced due to the Grand Supreme Kai getting the Adaptational Wimp treatment.
- Universe 3: Dr. Raichi isn't the strongest in Universe 3 because he's a warrior himself, but because of his ability to create endless Ghost Warriors out of slain warriors from his universe, like the Saiyan race. He can also create Ghost Warriors out of the tournament participants if they died, even if he had nothing to do with their deaths.
Kill Six Billion Demons:
- The canonically strongest character (as well as greatest warrior) in The Multiverse is Zoss, the Conquering King and first Demiurge. Having planeswalked into Heaven, he found the gods long dead and all the angels guarding their corpses. Zoss killed all of them on his own and claimed Heaven (called Throne) by right of conquest. Word of God says that Zoss would "absolutely shit on" any current character in the comic. Even being decapitated doesn't seem to have stopped him permanently.
- Amongst the current characters, Jagganoth ranks as the strongest. Known as "Pankrator" ("all-powerful" in Greek), Jagganoth is as strong as the other six Demiurges combined and possesses the unique power of being literally untouchable: He cannot be physically harmed by any known force in The Multiverse. This is on top of his Super-Strength, Super-Speed, millennia of combat experience, knowledge of the Red Arts, knowledge of weaponry and technology, and the fact that he can melt people by standing close to them.
In Problem Sleuth, the title (which allows its holder to wield the Megaton Key) is first held by Mobster Kingpin and later by Ace Dick.
Survival Story of a Sword King in a Fantasy World: It's left unclear if protagonist Ryu Han-Bin is actually the strongest, but at the very least, Hanbin's glitched Guideline has resulted in him gaining physical strength and fighting abilities greater than most opponents he encounters, to the point that his sword swings can re-arrange the landscape, and the most damage he takes in a fight thus far comes from him finally unlocking his aura subconsciously during an intense fight, which is so powerful that it proves as damaging to Hanbin as it is to his opponent. It's to the point that Hanbin often has to be absent or separated from his allies in order for them to have any serious stakes in the plot, and Hanbin is often waylaid by external factors that mean he doesn't want to or can't utilise his full strength in a fight, the main one being that, if he shows off his strength too much, people might identify him as an Otherworlder.
Tower of God has four contenders: Jahad, Enryu, Phantaminum, and Urek Mazino. All of them are Irregulars i.e. people who entered the Tower from Outside.
- Jahad conquered the Tower and became its hegemon, establishing a mighty civilization across the Tower in his own name. It was noted that he was the most powerful of the original Irregulars who climbed the Tower, with Arie Hon, who was the strongest of the 10 Family Heads, admitting inferiority after having lost to him all the ten times he challenged him. Just receiving his blood is enough to turn people into mighty warriors. Before the arrival of Enryu and Phantaminum, Jahad firmly held the rank of one throughout the entire Tower and despite his inactivity and the truly superior might of those two, it was regarded by Po Bidau Gustang, a Family Head who knew both Jahad and Urek Mazino, another Irregular who held the title of the strongest Ranker active in the present until his return to activity, that Urek would be incapable of killing him, making him the current strongest man active upon coming out of his hibernation.
- During the reign of Jahad, Enryu appeared on the 43rd Floor and slaughtered its Guardian, a feat impossible for even Jahad. During that battle, the 43rd Floor was reduced to a wasteland and many of Jahad's followers perished. After that incident, Enryu vanished and currently his whereabouts are unknown. He overtook Zahard as the strongest person in the Tower until the arrival of Phantaminum, although since Phantaminum is an Axis, he doesn't count and Enryu is still technically the strongest human character in the series.
- Phantaminum is currently the most powerful being of the Tower, being an Axis whose power and status is above the story, meaning no one apart from another Axis is capable of challenging him at all. Even Enryu was confirmed to be no match for him, while Phantaminum was stated to be fully capable of obliterating the entire Tower if he wanted to. To wit, the series creator seriously doubted that he would ever appear in the story. Without people even knowing his status and power as an Axis, Phantaminum infiltrated Jahad's fortress by himself and massacred most of its personnel, all of them High Rankers. Almost everyone who survived his rampage lost his mind out of sheer terror over witnessing his power. Like Enryu, Phantaminum mysteriously vanished after the incident, but since then he was regarded as the strongest, with the people of the Tower giving only Enryu a snowball's chance in hell in a fight against him and at one point considering Urek Mazino, who personally came into the Tower tracking down Phantaminum, as being the loser in a fight between them.
- Another Irregular, Urek Mazino, while not as powerful as the aformentioned three, still managed to accomplish many stupendous feats upon entering the Tower that led to him earning the rank of four through the entire Tower and surpassing the might of the 10 Family Heads (who are all also Irregulars; notice a pattern?), which included climbing the Tower in just fifty years, stalemating Arie Hon (the strongest of the 10 Family Heads before getting to the Top), and establishing an N.G.O. Superpower as influential as the 10 Great Families, if not more so. Overall, with Enryu and Phantaminum's whereabouts unknown and Jahad in hibernation, Urek took the title of the strongest man active until Zahard's return.
Hero Killer has the Elders, the eight strongest Gift users who's power and age allows them to basically ignore the laws of the goverment and do as they please. The main character Ihwa's and Deuteragonist Engen attempts to surpassing them is a big plot point as there's no chance to change the rotten Hero Clan goverment without their fall.

Web Original

Mr Mendo, though she's only "The Internet's Strongest Man." (IRL, she can leg press over 1000 lbs.)
Chuck "Memetic Mutation" Norris.
Worm:
- Scion is the first and strongest superhero, so far beyond the rest that fights against the Endbringers almost always end up boiling down to "Hold the Line until Scion shows up to deliver a Curb-Stomp Battle." The next strongest three are known as the Triumvirate: Alexandria, the Flying Brick, Legend, the Flying Firepower, and Eidolon, who can choose any three powers at one time. On the villainous side are Glaistig Uaine, whose ability to summon three ghosts of dead parahumans made her too strong for any other hero to beat and lets her stand up to Scion, and the Siberian, the only one to ever hurt Alexandria in direct combat.
- It turns out that Scion is neither a parahuman nor a superhero. He's the source of most powers and the final enemy.

Web Videos

Crypt TV: Whilst every monster appears capable of merely ripping apart a normal human on top of possessing supernatural powers, there are a select few that are implied to be the top of the pack known as the Divine Creatures of Darkness, not to mention that that at least two beings are essentially gods, one of whom seeks to use their power to end the world. However, among the former group is a member called the Look-See, with a Word of God reply indicaing that it is the strongest of them all, or at least the most deadly. Whilst the comment implies it was a top-of-the-head observation, when the Look-See did battle with other monsters in the creepypasta episodes, inlcuding a fellow Divine Creature who embodies the concept of death and a monster made with a literal death wish against the Look-See, not only did it never techically lose, but even won against the latter.
False Swipe Gaming: Snorlax is the absolute best Pokémon Gen 2, and every single video covering Gen 2 will always mention this.
Supermarioglitchy4's Super Mario 64 Bloopers: The creators of the series have gone on to create a tiering list for their various characters, with Zero placed at the front of the S-Tier, the highest possible level. And a good deal of evidence supports this position; not only does fellow S-Tier Mellony struggle against him battle, but Zero is later revealed to be the fusion of two Meme Guardians. As two Meme Guardians need to work together to harness the power of memes, which enables one to do almost anything, this means Zero has a massive advantage over pretty much everyone, on top of his corruption, life draining and physical abilities.

Western Animation

Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra:
- The Avatar is regarded as the strongest bender on the planet no matter what, by virtue of having access to all the bending arts and the Avatar State. The former means a properly trained Avatar can counteract almost any bending style, while the latter is makes the Avatar a Person of Mass Destruction who can reshape continents.
- Firelord Ozai was considered the world's strongest Firebender, with only his brother Iroh giving him any competition, during his rule in the closing days of the war. In fact, it's on more than one occasion stated that other than Iroh and the Avatar, no other bender of any element might be able to beat him. Not Azula, not Toph, not the members of the White Lotus. This is especially true during the passing of Sozin's Comet, at which point he can create fires so massive he'd have been able to single-handedly burn down a decent portion of the Earth Kingdom (from atop an airship, mind you). He loses this title at the end of the series, when Aang takes away his bending.
  Zuko: Uncle, other than the Avatar, you are the only person in the world who might be able to defeat the Firelord.
  Iroh: Even if I could defeat him, and I'm not saying I can, history would just remember it as one brother killing another for power.
- Katara is all but explicitly the most powerful Waterbender alive, and is likely one of the most powerful benders in the world (alongside Zuko and Toph). The only thing stopping her and the rest of the original team from being more active is their advanced age.
- Toph and Bumi shared the status of being the strongest earthbenders in the world when they were both still alive. This is mainly because a duel between them ended in a draw. After Bumi died, the title went to Toph, whose strength only grew with time and more than lives up to it, even into her old age. By the time of Korra, she is very likely the most powerful non-Avatar earthbender who has ever lived, and is probably in the running for the strongest bender alive at that point (rivaled only by Zuko and Katara).
- Zuko, much like the rest of the surviving members of the original Team Avatar, is still far and away one of the greatest benders alive and still holds his own in a fight; it's just that nothing can make up for the fact that he's almost a century old and that does hold him back... if other factors also work against him. It's noted just above that despite hypothetically being in a situation where he shouldn't even be able to firebend, he still does.
- Amon/Noatak is arguably the strongest non-Avatar bender in the entire franchise. He was a prodigy waterbender and bloodbender, mastering his father's psychic bloodbending at the tender age of fourteen, and never lost an onscreen fight. To help put this further in perspective, the creator of Bloodbending needed the full moon to boost her Waterbending to a high enough level to do so. Amon can psycically Bloodbend without a full moon, so he's always that strong.
Castlevania (2017):
- Dracula is hands down the strongest character, so much so that his power is considered a force of nature or that of the Devil rather than just one strong vampire. This is especially evident in the final battle: Dracula, despite being in a badly weakened state due to having refrained from drinking blood and generally being at the end of his tether because of the loss of his wife Lisa, demolishes Alucard (his half-vampire son), Trevor Belmont, and Sypha Belnades with only mild difficulty. The heroes don't even defeat Dracula either; he simply has a Heel Realization and My God, What Have I Done? moment after nearly killing his own son and lets himself get staked. At full health, Dracula is shown in a flashback to be no less than an Invincible Villain.
- As far as squishy mere mortals go, Vampire Hunter Trevor Belmont is easily the strongest human man we see in the show (which is fitting given his Heroic Lineage). Even without his holy whips, Trevor can kill a massive Werewolf with his bare hands, send a demon flying with a kick, and equal Alucard in a sword fight. While Trevor might've been physically outclassed by Dracula, the Morning Star Whip wielded by Trevor was the only thing that succeeded in actually hurting Drac during the whole fight. In Season 3, Trevor Dual Wielding both his whips was able to one shot the Visitor, a super demon who had just absorbed the souls of an entire town. In Season 4, Trevor is able to fight The Man Behind the Man Death who was going to use Dracula himself like a puppet to usher in the apocalypse and Trevor using the Godzilla Threshold actually manages to kill Death. While he almost died in the process, Trevor in all probability is the mightiest character in the series for that feat.
The Dragon Prince has Aaravos, going by the quote that he's "stronger, older, and wiser than any other magical creature in Xadia", qualifies him for this position, considering his magic is extremely potent even whilst imprisoned and only at a quarter of his previous might, and it takes a lot of knowledge and skill to even wield basic magic. He wasn't even defeated in battle; the most ancient and powerful of the Dragons had to use trickery in order to imprison him, and they are terrified of his possible return.
In The Fairly OddParents!: Timmy once wished to be the toughest guy on the beach — ergo, he'd be stronger than the toughest fellow to turn up on that beach. This was going fine and dandy until a whale beached itself.
The Flintstones: Bamm-Bamm is billed as the strongest baby in the world, and in later cartoons the strongest teen in the world. By the time of "Hollyrock A-Bye Baby", his and Pebble's baby daughter Roxy is the new strongest baby in the world.
Jackie Chan Adventures episode "The J-Tots" has Bartholomew Chang assemble the Chang Gang, consisting of Evil Counterparts of the J-Team members. Tohru's counterpart is Helga Sorenson, the world's strongest woman, who is shown to be even stronger than the world's strongest man.
Masters of the Universe:
- He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983): He-Man, THE MOST POWERFUL MAN IN THE UNIVERSE!!!! His power-set is actually defined as being exactly as strong as he needs to be for any given task. Meaning that he'll always be at least slightly stronger than anyone he fights, no matter how strong they are. He-Man's completely insane feats of strength include:
  - Pushing a moon out of orbit (which he's done twice).
  - Pushing aside mountains.
  - Reversing a tornado by swinging his sword in spirals fast enough to create a counter-vortex.
  - Running in circles fast enough to create a vacuum in order to cause a waterspout.
  - Drilling to the center of the planet with only a broken stalactite.
  - Dragging a huge spaceship down to the ground with a grappling hook.
  - One of his most dramatic feats may be this: Picking up Castle Greyskull and throwing it across half the continent.
  - In the 2002 remake, naturally it's still He-Man. The most obvious example is when he disposes of a several hundred ton tower that turns everyone around it into evil Snakemen by picking it up and tossing into the sun. A flashback episode reveals that in a previous generation, the title was held by his ancestor, King Greyskull. As in, "By the Power of Grayskull!".
- His twin sister She-Ra probably counts as the World's Strongest Woman. And given that she spends most of her time on another planet she probably qualifies as the Strongest in Etheria regardless of gender.
Ninjago: The First Spinjitzu Master, the creator of Ninjago, is pretty much hailed as the strongest being in all of the realm he created and most likely all the 16 Realms. Being born of both dragon and oni, the two most powerful species in all of the Realms, he wields both the powers of destruction and creation at the highest level, along with having all the elemental powers except water and wind. He's created the strongest weapons in the world, such as the Four Golden Weapons of Spinjitzu, (which only he could wield to it's fullest extent, even Garmadon can't wield it's true power for long without collapsing), the Golden Mech, and the Realm Crystal. While we never see him in action, the feats he achieves is already enough to put him on an entirely different level than any of the heroes and villains, long after his death. He was able to defeat the Overlord, the embodiment of the darkness of Ninjago, by splitting the entire content in half, whereas in comparison, Lloyd, the Green Ninja, could barely hold his own when the Overlord wasn't at full power and it was his power harnessed by Lloyd that later defeated him again. It was also revealed that his power is what keeps the Oni from invading Ninjago, so much so that even after his death, just fragments of it was enough to hold them at bay for centuries, whereas it took all the Ninja working together to defeat the Oni, with even Garmadon at his full potential being hardly able to match the Oni's leader, the Omega. The one time he's lost is when he was far from reaching his full potential and against Wojira.
Popeye has reached this level when spinached up; even without it, he's pretty strong.
Rocky and Bullwinkle: While a moose rather than a man, Bullwinkle J. Moose every so often performs feats of incredible strength, which he attributes to his "mighty moose muscle," or sometimes just "moose-le."
Steven Universe:
- At the top of the pyramid are The Diamonds, leaders of Homeworld, who are considered to be the universe's strongest Gems. Peridot says that while each Gem type has their own strengths and weaknessnes, the Diamonds do not, and are supposedly perfect in every way. "Perfect" may just be propaganda to keep their image up among their citizens, but they're still powerful enough to instantly poof most other Gems and are difficult to best in combat. Between the four of them, White Diamond is even larger, stronger, and even thinks of the other Diamonds as being flawed compared to her.
- Among lesser gems, there are Lapis Lazulis. Their power is absolute control of water, with a later episode directly stating that her race's purpose in the Gem hierarchy is terraforming entire planets. Even among them, The CG!Lapis stands out. In "Ocean Gem", she is able to control the entire ocean, even with her gem cracked. In the same episode, she is able to create water clones that can easily defeat the main characters. When Steven repairs her gem with his previously mentioned healing powers, she also gets the ability to create water wings to fly, which she can summon even without a nearby water source. In general, the series counterbalances this by making Lapis a flighty PTSD sufferer who has no interest in the overall conflict, and tends to leave the scene whenever possible. The few times she does participate in fights, she dominates the opposition, even if they're other Lazulis.

Real Life

The current record holder for an assisted bench press is Ryan Kennelly at 1,070 pounds.
The "official" world record for deadlift at 500 kilograms is held by Eddie Hall, who won the World's Strongest Man in 2017. Hafþór Júlíus "Thor" Björnsson deadlifted 501 kilograms, but it was not during a competition and is therefore a subject of controversy as to which man actually holds the record.
The World's Strongest Man, an annual competition pitting strongmen from all over the shop in a very broad range of events designed to test all-round strength. Events vary from from traditional weight lifting to dragging, flipping, carrying, pushing, pulling, holding, throwing and otherwise manipulating incredibly heavy items such as tractor tyres, anvils, tractors, trains, cars, beer kegs, giant stone pillars, and the iconic Atlas Stones. The former page image was four time champion (and two time runner-up) Magnus ver Magnusson, whose name means "Big Guy Son of Big Guy who was the son of another Big Guy").
American Olympian Paul Anderson was for a time credited for having lifted 6,270 pounds in 1957, earning him a reputation as the strongest man in the world. Similar to Minerva's "assisted" feat in the pro wrestling section, The Guinness Book of World Records later withdrew their recognition of the feat for some questionable circumstances.
Hafþór Júlíus "Thor" Björnsson, the actor who plays Gregor "The Mountain That Rides" Clegane in the Game of Thrones series, holds the world record at keg tossing, a sport in which involves tossing a 15.5 gallon barrel (which weighs about 33 pounds) over a high bar set at various heights. As of November 2015, the record (breaking one he had set himself earlier that year) is 24 feet, 6 inches. He would also go on to win the 2018 World's Strongest Man competition, after making the podium on five other occasions. He also dramatically won the January 2015 "World's Strongest Viking" contest in Norway by carrying a 650kg (1,433 pound) 9.8m (32 foot) "monster log" on his shoulders and carrying it for three steps. This was based on the feat recorded in The Icelandic Sagas of Orm Storulfsson the Strong carrying the mast of a viking longship (said to be that same length and weight) for three steps before breaking his back. Storulfsson's record had stood for a thousand years until Björnsson broke it by taking five steps carrying the log and notably not breaking his back, being able to jump around in ecstasy at accomplishing the feat afterwards.
Louis Cyr was a French Canadian strongman with a career spanning the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His recorded feats, including lifting 500 pounds (227 kg) with one finger and backlifting 4,337 pounds (1,967 kg), show Cyr to be, according to Ben Weider, a former chairman of the International Federation of Bodybuilding & Fitness, among the strongest men ever to have lived. (Incidentally, his two thousand dollars weekly earnings was worth in his lifetime some 25 times what it would be at the time this trope was launched.)

World's Strongest Man

Examples:

Example subpages:

Alternative Title(s): Worlds Strongest Woman

Previous

Index

Next

World's Strongest Man

Edit Locked

Examples:

Example subpages:

Alternative Title(s): Worlds Strongest Woman

Previous

Index

Next