How come energy manipulation is considered so powerful?

Question

From Vulcan to Doctor Solar how can energy manipulation be so powerful? What can they do that is so devastating that they qualify as Omega Level in the Marvel Comics Universe?

Answer 1

In comic universes, genre fiction, and science fiction, it is one of the most common tropes for energy-manipulating beings to be the the apex of the metahuman/alien or cosmic entity pile; they are by far stronger, more versatile and capable of doing a wider variety of things, in most cases than the Superman/super-strength type heroes popular with readers.

You are asking two questions:

• What is an Omega-Class metahuman?
• How powerful can an entity be with energy-manipulating powers?

The Short Answers:

• Omega-Class beings are generally so powerful they can perform feats beyond the understanding of most commonly attributed aspects of physics. Their powers are capable of rendering a planet lifeless with a sustained use of such powers.

• With the proper understanding, technology, development, awareness of the underlying nature of the universe, energy-manipulating powers can become a form of reality-alteration, the ability to manipulate what we know as existence itself.

• Some energy manipulators can do this to limited parts of reality such as matter or energy. Some can change the fundamental nature of reality itself, making and unmaking anything. With such powers, such an entity could be likened unto a god.

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My Definition of an Omega-Level Mutant/Metahuman (officially unsanctioned by Marvel/DC)

• The Omega-class metahuman is the Alpha-level mutant (any normal, trained mutant in the Marvel Universe) taken to an extreme. An Omega-level mutant is one with the most powerful genetic potential and expression of their mutant abilities.

• The term was first seen in the 1986 issue Uncanny X-Men #208, but was completely unexplained (beyond the obvious implication of it referring to an exceptional level of power). The term was not seen again until the 2001 limited series X-Men Forever.

• Some abilities depicted by mutants described as Omega-level include immortality, extreme manipulation of matter and energy, high levels of psionic ability, strong or extremely versatile telekinetic, or the potential to exist beyond the boundaries of the known physical universe.

While no firm definition has been offered in comics, certain mutants have been confirmed/granted Omega-level status include:

• Apocalypse (immortality, superhuman durability, molecular-level shape-changing)
• Jean Grey (telepathic/telekinetic; user of the Phoenix Force),
• Vulcan (vast superhuman energy manipulating capabilities),
• Rachel Summers (daughter of alternate timeline Jean Grey with similar powers),
• Iceman (cryo-hydro-kinetic),
• Legion (schizophrenic personalities with vast psionic powers),
• Proteus (reality-altering psychopathic vampire)
• Franklin Richards (energy-manipulating, reality-altering powers).

The Omega has either a single power whose diverse usage and extreme power level allows them to perform a variety of feats at a level beyond any single Alpha’s ability;

• Magneto’s control over magnetism,
• Charles Xavier’s mental/telepathic prowess are two examples of this type of ability.
• Though neither Charles Xavier nor Magneto's abilities have been confirmed as Omega-level.
• On the other hand, when their two powers were combined as Onslaught, they were easily the most powerful human entity on Earth to have ever existed.)

The other type of Omega has a wide range of powers that are normally found on entire super-teams and pushed to an obscene limit.

• Marvel’s Gladiator or the DCU’s Superman are an example of such a metahuman. Super-strength, superhuman levels of speed and reflex time, internal life support (proof against radiation, poison, no need to eat, sleep or excrete), invulnerability, energy projection powers, superior senses, and flight.

• What makes these two Omega-class is their virtually inexhaustible energy supplies. They are able to use their powers at full performance long after most Alpha-level mutants have become exhausted due to strain or fatigue.

In short: An Omega-Level being has powers so great, they can render an entire planet a lifeless husk with an improper use of their abilities, directly or indirectly.

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Why are Energy-Manipulating Abilities Ultimately the Best Kind of Abilities to Have in Comics?

When we look at the most powerful beings in most comic/science fiction universes, they tend to be entities who transcend the boundaries of what we know and understand as pure science. While they are explained as science, their abilities tend to border on appearing magical exemplifying Clarke's Law (any significantly-advanced science is indistinguishable from magic.)

Examples:

• Star Trek's Q species or the space-entity Trelane both exhibited powers outside the range of what appeared to be science: energy manipulation, teleportation, time travel, shape-changing.

• Marvel Comics' most powerful mutants manipulate energies magical, electromagnetic, even the Power Cosmic (a unique representation of super-scientific matter/energy manipulation unique to advanced space-faring beings/civilization such as Galactus/the Watchers/the Celestials.)

• DC Comics has fewer of such entities but their 5th-Dimensional Imps manipulate reality as we know with almost no effort; There is also the Source, used by the Gods of New Genesis and believed to be the origin of metahuman ability in the DC Universe and the Color Entities which power their respective Lightsmith Corps such as the Green Lanterns are excellent examples of advanced-energy manipulators using barely understood technology.

• Solarr, Man of the Atom and the Watchmen's Doctor Manhattan, whose powers tend toward a complete mastery of the structure of matter and a fundamental manipulation of the structure of the Universe itself.

It is this manipulation of the stuff of the Universe which is ultimately why energy-manipulation powers are considered the crème de la crème of superpowers.

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Energy-Manipulation can lead to the Ultimate Power: Reality Alteration.

With few exceptions, no matter how awesome a superstrong character is, he will top out on his ability to lift, move, destroy things using his superhuman strength and ability. He will never be able using strength alone to manipulate matter, to alter matter beyond what physics will allow.

• Superman may be able to utilize his strength to crush coal into diamonds, but he will never be able to turn those diamonds into cheeseburgers using said strength. There are limits to abilities like his.

• Superman may be able to move planets (which would take an incredible amount of energy, in and of itself, but he would be limited in HOW he could move said planet).

Beings such as Doctor Manhattan are an order of magnitude more powerful. Their energy manipulating powers allow them to fundamentally understand the physical nature of the universe and more importantly SUBVERT that nature using their powers. Advanced energy-manipulation is simply more versatile! But each such being who manipulates such energies can do so in vastly different ways.

• Powers such as Magneto's magnetic manipulation are at the low end of the reality-alteration powers because he is limited to the manipulation of a single aspect of reality, the manipulation of electromagnetism. He has managed to create things using his powers and his prodigious intellect.

• Jean Grey (Marvel Girl) as a host of the Phoenix can expand her telekinetic powers to an unbelievable degree. She can alter the nature of an object at the atomic level, changing one object into another; she can do this because the Phoenix Force provides an unlimited amount of energy, control and precision for her powers.

• Doctor Manhattan can: Appear in more than one place at one time (violating causality), change his size, mass and density at will, move through time and space (apparently without taking time and distance into account). He may alter the molecular structure of an object, changing it from one thing into another.

• The Q (apparently without machines) can alter time and space, move objects as massive as starships thousands of light years in an instant, teleport objects randomly, manipulate energy as if it were nothing more than the basest matter.

Among the super-powered set, such displays of power trump purely destructive displays such as Superman's amazing physical abilities or the power of Black Bolt's merest whisper shattering mountains because these powers, while destructive are rarely capable of CREATION, the act of making something new out of something else.

The ultimate expression of these powers lie in the hands of the cosmic beings best displayed by Marvel's most powerful entities.

• Doctor Strange, The Silver Surfer
• Earth's Pantheons of Deities, such as Odin Borson or Zeus
• Cosmic Cubes
• The Celestials
• The Vishanti, The Occtessence
• Galactus/Franklin Richards
• Infinity, Eternity, Death

At this level, such beings see the Universe at a level beyond the material, they are able to see and manipulate the stuff of the Universe down to the quantum foam, matter, energy, spirit, as interchangeable elements through the use of science, magic or sheer will power.

This is why energy-manipulation and ultimately reality-alteration (converting one aspect of reality into another) is considered to be the apotheosis of metahuman abilities. Such beings are respected and feared because to them, what is real to us as limited three-dimensional beings, limited to what we know of reality through our technology and our senses, is as transitory and ephemeral as the wind to such as them.

Answer 2

Versatility is probably a major factor. Energy manipulation is the flipside of matter manipulation, matter being a form of energy and all that. Someone with the ability to directly manipulate energy has a power source everywhere, and very seldom are they stopped by a general immunity effect (due to the need to force heroes to struggle, the fire manipulator will wind up against the guy immune to fire, Wolverine always winds up fighting people who won't be killed by his blades, etc). In short, they can basically do anything once they are skilled enough to use the full breadth of their skills.