It's silly how power levels don't matter in superhero stories.

This is not a cringe-worthy power scaling post. In many comic book stories, writers often overlook the fact that some characters are theoretically more powerful than others. As a result, they tend to place most superhumans on the same equal playing field.

(Side note: Unless the character is some supervillain. And that is when the writer acknowledges power levels. Since the villain needs to look scary to the audience)

In real life, this wouldn’t make sense, especially if the powers are simply diverse mutations, like those in X-Men or My Hero Academia. Different types of superpowers would exist, meaning that nearly any ability could qualify as a superpower.

Power dynamics between characters in comic books are only recognized when a superhuman faces a regular human. For example, Superman versus Batman (side note: Batman would be considered superhuman in real life).

However, having superpowers doesn’t necessarily mean you outclass a regular human in every category. What if a superhuman has a useless ability, like making their skin glow? What if another has only super intelligence but is otherwise mostly normal?

There are many real-world analogies for this. For instance, a 5'5", 110-pound elite UFC fighter might struggle against a 6'6", 450-pound professional strongman with no combat experience.

There is no way a human could beat an elephant in a fight, but a human might be able to defeat a chimpanzee though. Yet both an elephant and a chimpanzee are generally stronger than humans, despite not being at the same level of strength.

Weapons serve as another analogy here. A gun is more dangerous than a knife, and a knife is more dangerous than brass knuckles, even though all three are dangerous. Each weapon still has a different level of threat.

My point is that superpowers would theoretically follow the same logic. Not every superhuman would be equal in power, and not every superhuman would outclass regular humans in every category.