“Look at me. I'm a monster with a badge and I have the President of the U.S. of bleeding A in my pocket-- And a mad one to crack open every member of your family and suck out the gooey bits. Again... And again... And again.”

Series: DC
Name: Manchester Black
Pronouns: He/Him
Origin: Manchester
Age: ???
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Likes: The Elite, Justice.
Dislikes: Superman

Before We Go Anywhere

So, if you know anything about me, this was supposed to be a full Makima vs Manchester Black blog back in 2024. That ended up getting cancelled for a few factors, including a lot of the members just straight up not having a good time on the blog. So, this’ll mostly be compiling the writing/reading we did on that blog. Someone else was supposed to do this and didn't, so, you're stuck with me.

I’m also not going to fully go in-depth with everyone that Manchester scales to. Frankly, I don’t have the time for multiple other comic characters to deep dive. I’m going to just present the arguments and you can choose how you feel about them, wow!

Credit to Jon Kent/Superman respect thread, Power Girl respect thread, Respect Ultra-Humanite and more.

Background

In the world of DC Comics, high in the sky are the superheroes; their red capes soar across the skyscrapers, protecting the innocents and stopping the villains that terrorize Earth. To many, they are symbols of hope and icons that stand for truth and justice. And to others, they were symbols of hope and icons that stood for truth and justice. Yet, the villains kept coming; Earth would continue to be threatened, robbers would continue to rob, and murderers would continue to murder. How could these heroes not solve these problems? If not them, who was going to rightfully put a stop to them? Why an Englishman of course, a man with no qualms for violence, known as Manchester Black.

Black sought a world where people were actually safe, and not under the constant threat that some alien would drop from the sky and lay waste to their cities. He came to realize the only true way to stop a super-villain was to kill them and banded a group of metahumans together to take matters into their own hands. This group would become known as the Elite, with Manchester Black as their telepathic leader. Amassing quite the reputation, it wasn’t long before a superhero would cross their paths and disapprove of their methods, and who else but the superhero, Superman; the Last Son of Krypton. But, Kal-El played right into their plan, forcing a confrontation between Superman and the Elite to occur on a moon afar off the planet Jupiter, videotaped (somehow in space?) for the world to see. Manchester Black would use his telepathic abilities to cause Clark to have a stroke, allowing his teammates to attack the vulnerable Kryptonian, resulting in a giant explosion.

The Elites thought the Man of Steel was destroyed, but they were sorely wrong; one by one, the members of the Elites were killed by Superman, leaving Manchester Black alone and face to-face with Superman. Superman would then use his x-ray vision to see through Black’s body, seeing his brain’s odd growth and realizing that is his powers. Using a thin lining of heat vision, he burns through Black’s retinas and severs the brain’s growth, removing his psychic abilities for a time. Feeling utterly wasted, Manchester Black’s tears of frustration reflected how he was beaten by his methods, no less from Superman. Fortunately, Superman revealed that not only would his powers eventually return, but that his teammates weren’t killed, only rendered unconscious for a time. Manchester Black begrudgingly warned Superman he wouldn’t stop coming from him, but his next time would be far different.

After escaping the clutches of Doomsday during Imperiex’s attack, Black made his next move on Superman by mind-controlling many of his rogues, which got Superman’s public identity revealed, and while the villains attacked him, Black would go to Superman’s home. Clark would find Black, who had apparently killed his loving wife Lois Lane, taunting him, hoping Clark would step over the line and kill him, but he resisted the temptations. Black could not resist Superman’s spirit and willpower any further, and his mental fortitude crumbled the illusion around him, as Black had truly never killed Lois, and realized that by planning to put a good man in a position to kill someone, Black had become the very thing he sought to destroy; a villain. And he abided by his own terrifying rules; villains must die. He would take his life with his powers, but not before performing one last act in hopes of forgiveness; wiping the memories of the villains who knew Superman’s identity. Freeing the Earth of scum, one villain at a time.

Experience

Manchester has been a master of his psychic powers for a long time. As a mere child, he was able to torture an entire factory with only his mind, showing an already great grasp of his telekinetic abilities. As Manchester Black grows up, his control over his powers only becomes more potent and unique, shown through the many things he’s able to do with his mind throughout the years.

He’s also able to enact plans that take years of preparation. His limiting of Superboy’s powers was something that took years, trying to get Superman to kill him, and his consciousness upload into his sister took an intense time of planning and intelligence to even come up with the concept.

Equipment

Lighter and Cigarettes

Lung cancer has never looked cooler.

Phone

Pick up the phone baby. I know you're home baby.

Powers and Abilities

Telekinesis

Manchester Black can easily knock people around with his thoughts alone. His telekinesis isn’t limited to just throwing people around, he’s able to cut people's limbs off, cause internal bleeding, or just manipulate the capillaries inside your brain to cause a stroke. The stroke thing isn’t a one-time ability, as it’s also a side effect of his psychic energy upon death.

Telekinetic Force-Fields

Obviously, all the mental power in the world isn’t going to help if you can’t use it to protect yourself, and luckily for Manchester, he can. The best that we’ve seen from Manchester Black’s forcefields are blocking energy blasts from Apollo on two different occasions. His barriers aren’t just limited to large circles he can create, as he seemingly makes a barrier around his body to stop bullets.

Illusions

Manchester Black has shown quite potent illusions over his career. Most notably, he used them to make Superman think Lois was dead, that she had her leg cut off, as well as having used them to make Lois think her dad was beating and tormenting her, showing her Clark and Diana kissing (bro must have used his powers on the New 52 writers to make them think that was a good ship), using them to hide Clark’s appearance to make him look younger and stronger then he was, made illusions of the entire Justice League in his fight with Apollo, and much, much more. It should be noted that his illusions cannot work on artificial lifeforms, Although this is only limited to said illusions.

Mind Control

Like any good telepath, Manchester Black can control the minds of individuals such as this poor soldier, Steel, or Lex Luthor. Controlling your mind gives him access to your memories, such as the time he erased Superman’s identity from Lex Luthor’s head. If he believes you’re a big enough threat, he can prevent you from doing a specific action, like when he prevented Zatanna from being able to speak backwards or disabled Superboy’s power by rearranging the structure of his brain. His control over others' minds is so powerful that it manages to stay hidden from Martian Manhunter, a high-tier telepath.

Psionic Blasts

Manchester Black can fire blasts of seemingly psionic power through his fingers.

Possession

After Manchester Black fell into a coma, he possessed a cow. He still displayed some of his telepathic abilities.

Consciousness Upload

When Manchester knew he was going to be killed, he uploaded his consciousness outside of his body as a safety measure. From there, he implanted his consciousness into his sister Vera, and began to gradually take over her body, using illusions to resemble his previous self. He manages to keep himself inside of her body for a few issues before she ultimately fights back.

Consciousness Transfer

In one of Black’s weirder showings, he’s been shown to be able to swap the minds of two people. Most notably, he did this to Superman and Bizarro, making them swap bodies as a part of his messing with Clark. Martian Manhunter struggled to undo said mind transfer as it caused feedback right back onto him.

Black Substance

One of his best abilities, Manchester Black owns a black substance able to mess with Superboy’s nervous system which nullifies his power and shows him illusions of dead animals. This substance is strong enough to capture Superman (and potentially others depending on what you believe). The Black Substance also mind controls Superboy, able to push his powers to their absolute limit.

Resistances

Mind Manipulation: If you’re a telepath, then you better be able to protect your mind. Manchester Black’s mind is incredibly scary, he states that Raven wouldn’t be ready for what she’d find, backed up by the fact she’s knocked out. He’s also able to break through people’s own telepathic defences with his abilities. When he was in his sister's body, Martian Manhunter was unable to penetrate his mind.

Feats

Overall

One of the most dangerous psychics on the planet (he's been claimed to be tenth-level psy-talent).
Became the leader of the Elite.
Fought Superman with the Elite on a moon orbiting Jupiter.
Joined the Suicide Squad and took control of Doomsday to help fight the Imperiex Probes.
Revealed Superman’s identity and mind-controlled many of his villains.
Became an executive at S.T.A.R. Labs.
Captured and mind-controlled Superboy.
Joined Task Force XI, a team of the most powerful telepaths.
Aided Superman in liberating Warworld’s inhabitants and defeating Mongul.

Scaling

Jon Kent

As stated in his durability, there was a time where Superboy was actively trying to harm Manchester Black and giving him the beatdown which Manchester ultimately survived, so it should be fair to scale him to Jon’s strength. Of course, Jon is only a child here, so it’s only fair to scale him to feats performed when Jon was a child.

Power Girl/Tayna Spears

Power Girl! Someone who Manchester has actually displayed to be capable of fighting. Taking hits from her and even keeping up with her in combat speed, so it should be fine to scale.

Ultra-Humanite (Debatable)

As stated in strength, Manchester Black was capable of Telekinetically blasting multiple different robots from the Phantom Zone that gave Superman some trouble. While Superman was weakened, he was capable of physically match Ultra Humanite and take hits from him. This is probably the most debatable of the bunch.

Weaknesses

Mental abilities are very classy, but they don’t always get the job done, and at times, certain characters have broken through or resisted Black’s psychic abilities, sometimes through sheer Kryptonian will or via technology that shields the mind/blocks said attacks. His power derives from an overdeveloped lump in his brain, if cut-out, his powers will be disabled. Superman non-lethally sending his heat vision through Black’s retina temporarily disabled his powers & further suppressed using psi-dampeners.

And while Black isn’t one to shy away from violence, he very rarely fights in close-quarters combat and vastly prefers fighting with his powers, not really the confrontational type. Lastly, he’s quite the yapper.

Important Notes

Manchester Black Speed

The big debate on the blog ended up being where did Manchester Black get in speed? People had so many different takes on this to the point where the debate became all-over the place. Some people had him scaling to nothing, some people only had him scaling to street tiers, while others had him scaling to heralds. I will try and present arguments for why he should scale to street tier characters and then heralds.

In terms of scaling to low tiers, Manchester Black has kept up with Power Girl. It should be noted that Power Girl had the surprise on him, as she had just popped out of an illusion of Despero (Hey that guy came up twice). His other feats are reacting to energy attacks from Apollo, and creating barriers to do so. These aren’t barriers around his body by the way.

But high tiers? This is where things get juicy. The most blatant speed feat is Manchester Black reacting, catching, and lighting it up. This heat vision would be immeasurable or infinite based on his tagging heralds with it on multiple different occasions. Here’s him destroying a horde of Doomsday clones before they can react, blasting Despero before he can react, and Major Force who’s a constant threat to Captain Atom. Captain Atom has kept up with Flash. Manchester should be able to scale.

This would also make sense given the other members of The Elite. You see, Coldcast, one of these members, keeps pace with people like Hawkgirl and Firestorm. Him not scaling would make no sense.

At the end of the day this is all personal interpretation as it’s hard to get a read on Manchester's stats.

Superman Scaling?

Yeah, no. As much as I would love to say he’s capable of taking hits from a full-powered Superman, we can only really justify certain showings of feats like the laser vision. Telepathically, we can justify this, as he Telekinetically threw around and hurt Superman but physically? Even I can draw a line.

Overall….

“Poncy git...You can't exist in the real world. You just can't.”

Stats are genuinely so over the place that it comes down to personal interpretation of feats to where I'm not confident enough to put a definitive number on them.
Has multiple abilities that makes him a big threat including strokes and illusions.
A really strong telepath in a verse filled with telepaths.
Hard to put down due to his consciousness transfer.
Skilled schemer and team player.
From Manchester

Conclusion

This was fun, kinda. I like Manchester Black and he's a character i've been sitting on research for, like, a year now? This isn't going to be a regular thing since I much prefer matchup blogs, but if you enjoyed, let me know and I might do more.

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Character Analysis: Manchester Black (DC)