ANNUAL PUNCH-UP: 2019 CHARACTER RANKINGS RECAP

Every battle featured on Secret Wars on Infinite Earths contributes to the Fight Club Rankings! Characters move up and down the ranks relative to other characters, and based on every win, loss, and draw.

Real-time updates appear at the bottom of every new featured fight, but we also take stock of the movers and shakers at the end of each year. You can flashback to see how things have changed from 2016, 2017, and 2018. You can also check out a full recap of 2019 Featured Fights to see the battles that shaped the year!

Season 2019 turned out to be a good year for villains. Marvel's Absolute Carnage gave reason to revisit the classic Maximum Carnage event, which made Shriek and Carnage the two biggest improvers of the year! The "House of X" also saw Mister Sinister and Nimrod make significant gains in a very Marvel centric year. Halloween tradition made Solomon Grundy the most improved DC character, up 250 ranks, while Anti-Monitor's television debut sponsored a 218 rank rise.

Other significant gainers in 2019 were: Dazzler, Nebula, Photon, She-Hulk, Super-Skrull, Scarecrow, Mysterio, Mary Marvel, Doctor Sivana, and Hellboy. In equal opposite, featured defeats saw massive drops for: Dagger, Terrax, Beta Ray Bill, Gladiator, and Eradicator. A loss for Thanos pushed The Mad Titan to the bottom of the Top 10, while Sabretooth settled at the lowest rank of #946.

We added thirty characters to the cumulative rankings in 2019, which is taking us ever closer to the outstanding figure of 1000 ranked characters! Will it happen in 2020? Check out the full list of updated ranks for characters who were featured this year, and stay tuned in the new year for more from Secret Wars on Infinite Earths: The Comic Book Fight Club!

#1 (--) Batman (Bruce Wayne)
#2 (--) Spider-Man (Peter Parker)
#3 (--) Iron Man (Tony Stark)
#4 (--) Wolverine (James "Logan" Howlett)
#5 (--) Superman (Kal-El)
#6 (--) Hulk (Bruce Banner)
#7 (--) Captain America (Steve Rogers)
#8 (--) Luke Cage
#9 (+1) Mister Fantastic (Reed Richards)
#10 (-1) Thanos
#11 (--) Thing (Benjamin Grimm)
#12 (+1) Daredevil (Matt Murdock)
#13 (+1) Human Torch (Johnny Storm)
#15 (--) Wonder Woman (Diana of Themyscira)
#20 (+10) Steel (John Henry Irons)
#23 (+11) Green Arrow (Oliver Queen)
#29 (-4) Martian Manhunter (J'onn J'onzz)
#30 (-2) Thor (Odinson)
#31 (-2) The Flash (Wally West)
#35 (--) Silver Surfer (Norrin Radd)
#37 (+12) Black Panther (T'Challa)
#38 (+13) Black Canary (Dinah Lance)
#45 (+39) Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers)
#46 (+22) Captain Marvel Jr (Freddie Freeman)
#49 (+70) Captain Marvel (Billy Batson)
#50 (-5) Storm (Ororo Monroe)
#56 (-3) Rogue (Anna Marie)
#64 (+28) Scarlet Spider (Ben Reilly)
#66 (-2) Morbius, The Living Vampire (Michael Morbius)
#72 (+36) Supergirl (Kara Zor-El)
#77 (-8) Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner)
#95 (+133) Hellboy (Anung un Rama)
#100 (-3) Black Lightning (Jefferson Pierce)
#106 (+94) Doppelganger
#107 (-1) Blade (Eric Brooks)
#124 (+242) Scarecrow (Jonathan Crane)
#125 (+202) Mary Marvel (Mary Batson)
#126 (-2) War Machine (James Rhodes)
#131 (-11) Green Lantern (Guy Gardner)
#135 (+246) Super-Skrull (Kl'rt)
#136 (+250) Solomon Grundy (Cyrus Gold)
#137 (+250) She-Hulk (Jennifer Walters)
#142 (+308) Shriek (Frances Barrison)
#155 (+270) Photon (Monica Rambeau)
#178 (+294) Dazzler (Alison Blaire)
#200 (-8) Overlord (Antonio Seghetti)
#278 (-6) Plastic Man (Patrick "Eel" O'Brien)
#300 (-6) Alice (Elizabeth Kane)
#324 (new) Tyrant
#325 (new) Tawky Tawny
#326 (new) Sterling Morris
#327 (new) Omega (Michael Pointer)
#328 (new) Blue Marvel (Adam Brashear)
#329 (new) Shang-Chi
#330 (new) Beast Boy (Garfield Logan)
#333 (-1) Moon Knight (Marc Spector)
#335 (-195) Beta Ray Bill
#337 (+300) Carnage (Cletus Kasady)
#343 (-173) Gladiator (Kallark)
#347 (+156) Doctor Sivana (Thaddeus Sivana)
#348 (-6) Medusa (Medusalith Amaquelin)
#350 (+218) Anti-Monitor
#353 (+239) Nimrod
#354 (new) Uncle Marvel (Dudley H Dudley)
#355 (-47) Harry Leland
#383 (+207) Lobo
#384 (+280) Mister Sinister (Nathaniel Essex)
#390 (-31) Poison Ivy (Pamela Isley)
#400 (-20) Vision
#401 (+229) Mysterio (Quentin Beck)
#412 (-20) The Joker
#439 (new) Conan The Barbarian
#442 (-16) Crystal (Crystal Amaquelin)
#500 (-15) Scout (Kip Kidd)
#562 (new) Roaf
#563 (new) Trickster (James Jesse)
#564 (new) Lady Blaze
#565 (new) Ms. America (America Chavez)
#566 (new) Sersi
#567 (new) Hobgoblin (Jason Macendale)
#568 (new) Kole (Kole Weathers)
#570 (-149) Eradicator
#576 (+283) Nebula
#600 (-22) Scope
#678 (-17) Sasquatch (Walter Langkowski)
#700 (-16) Clayface (Basil Karlo)
#800 (-16) Mister Freeze (Victor Fries)
#855 (-14) Captain Britain (Brian Braddock)
#880 (-13) Black Manta (David Hyde)
#881 (new) Ganymede
#882 (new) Morg
#883 (new) Prowler (Hobie Brown)
#884 (new) King Kull
#885 (new) Ibac (Stinky Printwhistle)
#886 (new) Camazotz
#887 (new) Huo Li
#888 (new) Callisto
#889 (new) Selene Gallio
#890 (new) Black King (Sebastian Shaw)
#891 (new) Friedrich von Roehm
#892 (new) Sage
#893 (new) Swamp Thing (Alec Holland)
#894 (new) Doctor Light (Kimiyo Hoshi)
#895 (-14) Demogoblin
#896 (-28) Nightcrawler (Kurt Wagner)
#900 (-22) Mileena
#902 (-28) Enchantress (June Moone)
#909 (-305) Dagger (Tandy Bowen)
#910 (-45) Mister Atom
#911 (-214) Terrax
#915 (-29) Killer Frost (Louise Lincoln)
#935 (-40) The Penguin (Oswald Cobblepot)
#936 (-54) Cloak (Tyrone Johnson)
#937 (-30) Toad (Mortimer Toynbee)
#938 (-30) Thunderbolt Ross (Thaddeus Ross)
#939 (-30) Brick (Daniel Brickwell)
#940 (-30) Killer Croc (Waylon Jones)
#941 (-30) Lady Deathstrike (Yuriko Oyama)
#942 (-30) Dan Hibiki
#943 (-30) Lizard (Curt Connors)
#944 (-30) Zangief
#945 (-29) Quicksilver (Pietro Maximoff)
#946 (-31) Sabretooth (Victor Creed)

ANTI-MONITOR versus SUPERMAN, DOCTOR LIGHT & SUPERGIRL

Beyond The Silent Night (DC)
Where: Crisis on Infinite Earths #7 When: October 1985 Why: Marv Wolfman & Robert Greenberger How: George Perez

The Story So Far...
Manifesting on a moon of the anti-matter universe of Qward: The Anti-Monitor channeled that dimension's energies into fulfilling its ultimate domination. Sensing his equivalent, The Monitor, in a positive universe, he then set his sights on inter-dimensional conquest that resulted in their mutual dormancy for eons.

This slumber was broken by the experimental hubris of scientist Kell Mossa, who inadvertently roused the Monitors while attempting to learn the secrets of the universe. This allowed Anti-Monitor to enact a plot to destroy all universes comprising positive matter. Thus begins the Crisis on Infinite Earths!

Scouring the multiverse, The Monitor assembles heroic powers to fight the threat of existential annihilation. With some worlds now saved, Mossa channels positive and negative matter to guide the heroes through the universal membrane -- to confront the verge of the Anti-Monitor's hidden fortress!

Tale of the Tape...
Strength: Anti-Monitor 7 (Omnipotent)
Intelligence: Anti-Monitor 6 (Genius)
Speed: Superman 6 (Mach Speed)
Stamina: Anti-Monitor 7 (Unstoppable)
Agility: Doctor Light 7 (Unlimited)
Fighting: Superman 3 (Street Wise)
Energy: Anti-Monitor 7 (Cosmic Power)
Total: Anti-Monitor 33 (Super)

When it comes to cosmic threats to the DC Universe it doesn't get much bigger than the Anti-Monitor! His aims threaten to unmake reality itself!

We saw The Flash take down his Anti-Matter Cannon in Crisis on Infinite Earths #8, but the only time we've actually recorded Anti-Monitor in battle was much later, when he returned as part of the Sinestro Corps in Green Lantern #25.

In that epic encounter, it took the combined efforts of the Guardians of the Universe, Green Lantern Corps, Earth's heroes, and one of the Anti-Monitor's own teammates, to destroy him! It bodes well that it was Superboy-Prime who struck the final destructive blow -- but we're getting way ahead of things!

Superman is the primary target in today's featured battle, but he isn't alone!

Japanese scientist Kimiyo Hoshi was studying the anti-matter phenomenon when she was struck with a beam of ionic energy passing through an unstable star in the Vega system. The cosmic force was enacted by The Monitor, who turned her into a new soldier for good - the photonic hero Doctor Light!

Kimiyo Hoshi shouldn't be confused with the villainous Arthur Light, even though her costume and powers bear some similarity. This Doctor Light is determined to the point of arrogance, unwilling to suffer fools as she applies her knowledge of science to mastery over energy and light-based powers.

Doctor Light can offer Superman powerful support against the awesomely destructive energies wielded by the Anti-Monitor. Her ability to move as light particles can also compliment one of their few advantages over the awesomely powerful anti-matter entity -- superior speed!

We've seen Superman keep pace with Barry Allen [Flash: Rebirth #3] and Wally West [Flash #209], and if he can use that speed in combat he could tactically wear Anti-Monitor down. Strength and durability alone probably won't cut it this time, but there will be extra muscle on its way once the fight begins.

When Supergirl enters the fray, she effectively doubles their power! We saw her go toe-to-toe with Captain Marvel in Crisis on Infinite Earths #6, and Martian Manhunter in Adventure Comics #450! She'll also revisit the conflict with Mary Marvel decades later in Final Crisis #6!

With both Superman and Supergirl fighting, it's conceivable the Anti-Monitor could be damaged sufficiently to be defeated. The extra hands mean he can be subdued and tag teamed, with Doctor Light weaving in and out, as well. Will that be the case? Only destiny can decide this one! Let's meet their fate...

The Tape: Superman, Doctor Light & Supergirl Ranking: Superman (#5)

What Went Down...
Penetrating the deepest sanctum of the great cosmic fortress: Dr. Kimiyo Hoshi and Superman stand in awe of a massive mechanical solar collector. While Doctor Light examines its advanced technology, Superman closes in to begin its ultimate destruction -- unaware of the figure lurking behind him in the shadows!

Pain racks his body like never before as Superman is engulfed by the Anti-Monitor's awesome power! Here, his incredible strength and invulnerability will count for nothing. He is a mortal opposing the powers of a virtual god!

Kal-El's cry of agony echoes through the fortress, heard from afar by the super-humanly sensitive ear of Supergirl. She abandons the battle outside and follows the sound, but its Doctor Light who comes to his aide first.

Anti-Monitor effortlessly backhands Superman across the chamber and through a nearby wall. When Doctor Light attempts to intervene, her point blank beams of energy do nothing to deter their target. Anti-Monitor shows her how it's done!

He renews his pursuit of Superman, looming over the Man of Steel as his giant clasped hands smash against the Kryptonian's face! Every strike is another blow delivered to the hopes of the multiverse!

The cosmic titan stands ominously over the bruised Superman with his face obscured in smoldering energy. He means to deliver a finishing blow, but didn't count on Supergirl smashing through the halls of his fortress!

Faster than a speeding bullet she flies directly at the Anti-Monitor to deliver a devastating left hook! She keeps him off balance, following with an all mighty right that sends him smashing through another stone wall!

The advantage is short lived. Anti-Monitor swings wildly, launching Supergirl across the fortress with a furious left!

The enraged Anti-Monitor fires a beam of energy that catches Supergirl's limp body before she can land. She's sent tumbling in the air like a rag doll!

Promising death, he turns his attentions back to the wounded Superman -- but again the Anti-Monitor will be denied! Supergirl doggedly digs her heels in and rips the stonework up like a proverbial rug -- staggering the cosmic monster and sending his hand blasts harmlessly off course as he loses footing!

The Girl of Steel darts across the rubble to pour on punches from a mounted position. The strength and fury of her devastating blows begins to crack the Anti-Monitor's life-shell armor. He retaliates with a wild blow to the face, but the damage is already done! Power pours from his destroyed body!

With his power quickly waning, the Anti-Monitor must seize his opportunity to destroy his enemies and the worlds they come from.

As his body burns with leaking energy, the heroes huddle together, and Supergirl recruits Doctor Light to flee with her injured cousin while she plots a final desperate stand. She throws herself at the burning figure like a torpedo!

The trajectory takes the warring figures on a collision course with the solar collector machine - destroying it! Supergirl refuses to stop, still smashing her fists into the Anti-Monitor as they both burn within the machine's core!

Horrified, Doctor Light feels compelled to help the brave heroine -- but Supergirl desperately orders her to go. A momentary lapse that gives Anti-Monitor the chance he needs to lock his arm around her and unleash his raw power!

Superman can only watch in horror as untold cosmic energies completely consume Supergirl's body and a solid beam blasts right through her!

Anti-Monitor makes a desperate escape, running for a nearby ship as his body begins to fail him. He lives to fight another day. Supergirl will not.

Superman cradles his cousin's broken and bloodied body as her indomitable will at last begins to fade. She tells the Man of Steel not to cry. His example taught her to be brave - and she was. She dies knowing Anti-Monitor's machines were destroyed and the lives across multiple worlds were saved. 

The Hammer...
Supergirl's act of supreme sacrifice succeeds only in delaying the Anti-Monitor, who fled on the brink of destruction, but will return in the next issue fully healed, and wearing a newly formed shell that is his iconic armored design.

The battle and its result provides the first in a one-two punch of iconic deaths that set the stakes of Crisis on Infinite Earths apart from other events of the era. It was immediately followed with the death of Barry Allen, whose grim fate was prophesied in a much earlier issue.

In spite of a premise that could've easily incorporated their quick resurrection into a newly formed DC Universe; the deaths of both Supergirl and The Flash were granted an immediate and sustained sense of consequence. Dead was dead. At least for a while.

The Flash was at least permitted to have existed within this new universe's secret history, but his death quickly became a crucial part of the modern canon. Barry Allen was part of a slightly re-tooled Justice League origin, and would be paid frequent homage through the legacy of his successor, the former Kid Flash: Wally West. This new Flash struggled to understand the details of his mentor's death, but continued to honor it. No such luck for Supergirl, though...

The initial conception for Superman in the post-Crisis DCU was one of a mythic 'Last Son of Krypton'. Kal-El's world had become abundant with derivative survivors from his dead home planet. The reboot was an opportunity to restore his status as a one-of-a-kind icon, completely excising Supergirl from his reality.

Of course, it didn't take long for the merits of a Girl of Steel to be reconsidered.

It would still take until 2004 for Superman's cousin Kara Zor-El to be reinstated into the modern post-Crisis canon, but a facsimile was created in her stead fairly quickly: a compromised version conjured from a character minted just a couple of years before the Crisis rebooted history.

Matrix was a shape-shifting "protoplasmic" lifeform engineered in a pocket universe by a heroic alternate Lex Luthor. When she was thrust into regular adventures in the new DCU, she was entangled with a Luthor who had been masquerading as his own son. Her disguise was much simpler, inventing a Supergirl for a universe that had only known Superman.

The new Supergirl proved an adequate replacement, but inherently susceptible to high levels of continual convolution. Efforts to separate her from Kryptonian history, while still patching together familiar Supergirl tropes, just made things increasingly messy. Eventually she would have to go.

The argument for keeping Superman alone in the universe is a tempting one, but over time I've come to see more merits in a DC Universe with Supergirl in it.

The modern age has become increasingly fixated with darker impulses that challenge the fundamental core of Superman as a character. Supergirl, like other derivations of Superman, offer the perfect vessels for exploring alternative perspectives of Superman's experience, without interrupting or corrupting his status as an icon of truth, justice, hope, and aspirational American ideals.

Supergirl expands the DCU and Superman's world with her own adventures and canon, while also offering the opportunity to explore a Kryptonian who is younger, more impulsive, less experienced, and at the same time more versed in Superman's lost home world, and its traditions. These details, and an innate feminine perspective, have continued to make Supergirl an interesting character in multiple mediums. I can't help but think of the current TV series - a shining example of the value of the character, and the enjoyment she can provide.

Supergirl's death fighting Anti-Monitor was a pretty epic, bad ass way for the Silver Age version of the character to go out. I love seeing her refuse to back down - again and again. Does the headband somehow make it even more bad ass? I think so. I've got a real soft spot for it. It's a little eighties aerobics, but I dig it. It's a shame it had to die, but I'm glad it wasn't permanent.

That about wraps it for 2019. It's been a long year with some great fights and I'm bushed! Make sure you check out the 2019 Feature Fight Recap to revisit and vote for the best battles of the year. This battle technically kicks off Season 2020, so make sure you stick around for more Secret Wars on Infinite Earths!

If you'd like to check out Crisis on Infinite Earths for yourself, you can get yourself a deal and support the site by checking out the Amazon purchase link provided. If you don't see it, you may need to adjust your settings.

You can find more featured fights from the DCU and Crisis by following links throughout this post, or by diving into the Secret Archive! You'll be able to monitor a complete index of battles ordered by universe, series, and issue number!

You can also get daily links to fights inspired by the topics of the day by subscribing to Secret Wars on Infinite Earths on Twitter and Facebook. Make sure to like & share your faves! Happy holidays!

Winner: Anti-Monitor
#350 (+240) Anti-Monitor [+1 kill]
#5 (--) Superman
#71 (-2) Supergirl
#894 (new) Doctor Light (Kimiyo Hoshi)

ANNUAL PUNCH-UP: 2019 FEATURE FIGHT RECAP

It's been another full year of Secret Wars on Infinite Earths and boy what a year it was! 2019 produced one of the most eclectic lineups of featured fights we've ever seen. There were the usual cinematic and multimedia influences, along with exciting brand resurgence in comics, and some key milestone and classic issues, as well!

You can now help decide which battles were the best of the year. All you have to do is revisit your favourite fights by clicking the recap links below! The battles with the most hits will soon feature in our Annual Top 20 Cover To Cover spotlight. You can vote for as many battles as you like, as many times as you like! The most popular aren't necessarily the ones you'd expect, so dive in and enjoy the fights that were Season 2019!

#1 Hulk versus Champion of the Universe (Marvel Two-In-One Annual #7)
#2 Flash versus Kid Flash (The Flash TV Special #1)
#3 Doctor Light versus Green Lantern (Green Lantern #36)
#4 Cosmic Powers versus Tyrant (Silver Surfer #82)
#5 Ms Marvel versus Prowler (Ms Marvel #6)
#6 Marvel Family versus Monster Society of Evil (Convergence Shazam #1)
#7 Eradicator versus Steel (Superman: The Man of Steel #24)
#8 Ms Marvel versus Super-Skrull (Marvel Team-Up #62)
#9 Ms Marvel versus The Collective (New Avengers #17)
#10 Thor versus Conan The Barbarian (What If? #39)
#11 Lobo versus Superman (Adventures of Superman #464)
#12 Captain Marvel versus Captain Sivana (DC Comics Presents Annual #3)
#13 Justice League versus Captain Marvel (Underworld Unleashed #3)
#14 Hellboy versus Camazotz (Hellboy in Mexico)
#15 Avengers versus Thanos (Free Comic Book Day Civil War II #1)
#16 Spider-Man versus Mysterio (Amazing Spider-Man #13)
#17 Daredevil versus Mysterio (Daredevil #7)
#18 Spider-Man versus Mysterio (Spider-Man #65)
#19 Huo Li versus Shang-Chi (Shang-Chi: Master of Kung Fu One-Shot)
#20 Hellfire Club versus X-Men (Uncanny X-Men #209)
#21 Carnage Family versus Spider-Man, Cloak & Dagger (Web of Spider-Man #101)
#22 Batman versus Red Hood (Batman: The Killing Joke)
#23 Avengers versus Nebula (Avengers #315)
#24 Hobgoblin versus Moon Knight (Marc Spector: Moon Knight #32)
#25 Solomon Grundy versus Poison Ivy (Solomon Grundy #3)
#26 Blade versus Morbius (Fear #24)
#27 Swamp Thing versus Scarecrow (Swamp Thing #19)
#28 Spider-Man versus Demogoblin (Amazing Spider-Man #378)
#29 Sabretooth versus Mister Sinister (Uncanny X-Men #221)
#30 Penguin versus Green Arrow (Justice League of America #135)
#31 Demogoblin versus Carnage Family (Spider-Man #35)
#32 Marvel Family versus Earth-One Heroes (Crisis on Infinite Earths #6)

You can find even more superhero smackdown by checking the Secret Archive for a full index of every battle featured on Secret Wars on Infinite Earths! You can also flashback to the 2018 Feature Fight Recap and stay tuned to the main page for more updates as Season 2020 gets under way!