>>122263190Writers naturally tend to have highly differing opinions and interpretations, which is reflected in their stories. Quite often internal story logic regarding relative power levels is ignored, and personal favouritism (along with plot convenience) decides the outcome of confrontations. While this is done to avoid making outcomes too predictable, the results are completely inconsistent, and most importantly, the enormous contradictions in continuities, power levels, and comparative hierarchies between the many different writers and editors over the decades results in a massive amount of confusion. To illustrate, Marvel's executive editor Tom Brevoort, who is also in charge of writing the official handbooks for the company, and is likely the highest current authority regarding the company's internal continuity and power levels, had this to say regarding the topic:
"I get the sense that, somewhere, there’s a mighty battle boards-style discussion going on about the Sentry. And I try to stay out of those. But I will say that the transitive property has never applied to super heroes. After all, the Fantastic Four and Iron Man and even the Man-Thing have defeated the Molecule Man in the past, and doing so didn’t make them anything more than themselves."
”We need to stop thinking of these power relationships in such simple linear and black and white terms. if real life worked like that, there’d be no need for sporting events of any kind–you could tell which person or team was going to win without a game, from just looking at the stats.”
