Zauriel

            I am not going to lie; I was once a diehard DC comic fan. I liked the numerous races and ideas proposed by the writers—but sadly, the storyline (to me) has dwindled a bit, and I haven’t bothered renewing my interest. Also, I have felt that DC movies don’t seem to get it. Batman is one of my other favorite superheroes, and I have felt that his character is just not fully brought out in the movies.

            With this being stated, I will now turn your attention to my favorite super hero—Zauriel. The reason why I like him is because DC took on a unique challenge by creating this character. Grant Morrison (Zauriel’s Creator) came up with this character and his abilities. Zauriel has been around since the 1990s, appearing on the JLA #6 in 1997.

For the most part, Zauriel’s powers and abilities are mostly hypothesized. Most people don’t seem to know of his speed, strength or abilities (which I will list momentarily). But what we do know is, he can take hits from Etrigan without much difficulty, we know he was selected as a champion of heaven, and we know he has a sonic flash/roar ability which can destroy matter or destroy pretty much anything, however, like all heroes, he reserves this power for only the most heinous, powerful, and evil of individuals.

Adding to the list of what we know, Zauriel can fly, has magical heavenly armor, super strength, a flaming sword (that can cut through anything, control fire, is holy, and allows for entering other dimensions), he has a heavenly station hovering over L.A. and he can return from the dead. This character has a lot of abilities that seem overpowering, but then again, most DC heroes do—oh, did I mention that he get Michael’s battle spear? Which is said to be more powerful than his sword, yet no one knows what it can do. Lastly, Zauriel can talk to animals and do (what I call) holy magic, like parting the red sea and other bodies of water. He also doesn’t need to sleep and does not tire. Talking to animals is another ability that he can use as well.

So what is Zauriel’s strength class? Well we have seen him punch Etrigan through a wall, which means he would have to be at least in the 100 ton class. His armor boosts this to unknown levels—I have seen where sites state that his strength class is in the 10-15 ton range, but I don’t see him knocking invulnerable Etrigan back with this strength level, so I would say with his armor—he can easily match Superman, Mon-El, etc. in strength.

Speed is another unknown level—Zauriel has kept up with Supergirl in the comics, which suggests that his flight speed is as good as hers (please note this is with his armor that enhances his strength, speed, invulnerability, and magic resistance). So again, his speed seems to be on par with a Kryptonians.

With his armor, I would say that Zauriel’s invulnerability is like that of Supermans—if not better. I would think that Superman hitting Zauriel’s armor would be like a normal human hitting a metal plate—I just don’t think it would do that much damage. We have seen Zauriel take hits from Etrigan (who can punch someone to the moon), and this was without Zauriel’s armor. With this item, I would say that Zauriel’s invulnerability goes beyond most of what the JLA has.

Finally, Zauriel’s magic. If anything I would like to see more of his powers here. I think his powers are based on more biblical powers and I could hypothesize that he could do a pillar of flame and other powers based around the plagues of Egypt—but I don’t know. Michael’s battle spear may upgrade these as well, but again, we don’t know.

So now we know why Zauriel isn’t included in many comics. He is just too powerful. He is a overpowered character really. He has taken on Eclipso, Spectre, and Asmodel (though without the battle spear)—the crazy thing about this character is that he is also diminished and doesn’t have all of his Angelic powers and abilities. With this being said, he has more of a physical body and is immune to the weaknesses of super sonics that banish most angels from the physical plane. All of this, coupled with his powers make him an overpowered character.

I like Zauriel because he is a mystery. I enjoy some of the older writings about him and I like how he is an enigma—most writers I think don’t know what to do with him—I personally would like to see him go all out in comics against Darkseid, Doomsday, General Wade, Hades, Ares, or someone else on that caliber. Surely he could at the very least make a cartoon appearance, but as long as writers do not set the exact stats for Zauriel, he will always remain a powerful mystery.