[Bendingwave]

When weaker characters beat stronger characters without any legit logical reasoning then its due to either biased writers and or faulty writers who do not know each characters true powers and abilities.

Take for example the most biased/over rated Character of all in marvel "Captain America" who some feel can beat the Hulk, Thor or even Galactus.  ....its sort of like Batman in DC. 

If there were 5 batman they would beat the whole justice league.  ...with humans like batman who needs super powered hereos.

[wushuliu]

Ragnarok was deliberately ridiculous in its refusal to cater to fanboy geekery. That's why they hired a director whose previous film was a vampire mockumentary. It's why they hired Blanchett to strike a vogue over and over with over the top delivery, and why Idris Elba is running around making very earnest faces in the middle of a blatant Lord of the Rings Two Towers flight to Helm's Deep rip-off.

Ragnarok started off with Thor being zapped from place to place with a beer in his hand. That's exactly how Marvel wanted you to take in the movie.

[Folsom]

Superman Returns was a lot closer to the comics than Man of Steel.  Per the above reasoning, SR should do better than MoS at the box office.  Obviously that's not true, MoS crushed SR at the box office. 

Look, things get changed in order to go from a long form story (books/comics) to fit a short form story (movies).  Sometimes it's well done, sometimes its not. 

IMO being well done (or not) has more to do with BO success than faithfulness to the original source.

Well a good movie is a good movie, you could say. But the movies that diverge the most are almost always the worst movies aside from that fact.

It's funny though you bring up Superman. I don't notice any real difference between him in the movies. Doomsday? Ya, they changed him some... but he was always kind of annoying in the way that he cannot die from anything nonsense... without any mystical attribute. I can't complain that he died.

Batman... The Master of all Master tacticians. It is funny that he basically can out smart everyone. However the premise of his strategy often has to use other supes to do it. So I don't agree that a bunch of Batmans could dominate everything.

It is funny how strong people think Captain America is at times. However you have to give him extraordinary credit because ANYTHING that a human could possibly achieve the most unlikely of circumstances, is at his disposal. He can tap into the freak strength that allows a mother to lift a car off a child and stuff like that. Also his brain for fighting along with his perfect nerves are beyond someone like Bruce Lee, so his ability to skillfully dominate and evade are not paralleled by many. Most that can beat Cap simply have to grossly overpower him. A waging war between him and Black Panther, who would win, is an interesting question. BP has superior tech, like way superior, but he isn't quiet cap's level of human integrity, and yet the combo of his mystic power and suit elevate him rather high.

[Tyson]

This reminds me of those arguments from when I was a kid - Darth Vader vs Magneto, who would win?  And then trying to suss out the power levels and strengths of the various characters.  But I'm old enough and have read enough that I know that ultimately it's all arbitrary.  A character has a certain level of power because the writer says that's what they have.  A character will live or die because the writer makes them live or die. 

It's like in action movies - everyone "takes fire" from the enemy, and the writers arbitrarily decide who will get hit and when.  You might think there's some kind of 'rules' that the writers have to follow.  But that's simply not true.  In a fictional world, the rules are whatever the writers/creators say they are.  And those rules can and will change, whenever the writers want to make those changes. 

And I stand by my previous statement - a good movie is a good movie, regardless of faithfulness to source.  To give another example - The Shining by Kubrick.  Has very little in common with Stephen King's source novel.  Still one of the greatest movies of all time.  And that's something that has pissed off Stephen King (and his fans) for a very long time.

[Rob Babcock]

Furthermore SS is nothing but a whelp compared to Odin. SS and Thanos came at Odin once, SS got slapped out of the fight, and Thanos got beat down. SS was upgraded to maybe Thanos's level, whom cannot take Odin.

Of course it greatly depends on the era, the milieu, and the story.  Generally the Surfer is among the most powerful humanoid characters in the Marvel Universe, above the Hulk if for no other reason than the Power Cosmic.  He was created by Galactus, a being which probably is slightly above Odin's level.  So obviously he's not normally as powerful as Odin.  Thanos' powers are wildly variable; he's very potent but his cunning and intellect are his best weapons.  Of course while he possessed the Infinity Stones he vanquished Odin, Galactus, Hulk, SS, Lord Order, Master Chaos, et all with complete ease.  At that point he was utterly omnipotent.  Thor is another example.  By canon he can swing Mjolnir at least twice as fast as the speed of light although I don't recall him ever doing it in a book.  The Surfer is said to be able easily endure flying through the heart of a star without injury and is able to track someone across several light years.  He also has the power to transmute one substance into another and sometimes raise the dead.  And by drawing power from Nova he has demonstrated the ability to travel hundreds of thousands of years through time on his board.

We have to remember that someone simply made all this shit up.   A character has whatever power the writer at the time decides.  Look at ol' Supes. When he was first written he was probably about as strong as Spiderman and couldn't fly.  Early on he had the power of 'Super Ventriloquism" and could shoot tiny Supermen out of his fingertips.  Over the years Monty Haul syndrome set in and his power level kept ratcheting up until he was just the silliest, most adolescent wish fulfillment character in the DC stable.   

I like to see the movies follow the books to a good degree because, well, why else watch a comic book film if not to geek out over the characters you like?  Yet some things don't translate well and benefit from changes.  In the original Watchmen books, Ozymandias created a fake alien invasions- at the end the streets were littered with tentacles and stuff.  But the film version worked much better in the context of a movie and the original ending would have looked silly.  The Fantastic Four (yeah, yeah...more like Craptastic Four, I know!) featured Galactus and portrayed him as a big cloud of energy.  That's not right at all but think how silly a 300 fool alien with a 150 foot tall helmet would have looked on screen!  I think it was just about the only thing they did right in the film.

[Woodsea]

I found Ragnarok a splendid escape from our present reality.  The humor at some points was a bit to whimsical.  It's saving grace was the inclusion of The Immigrant Song. 
I am a huuge reader and take all movies from literature with a grain of artistic license.  Until Stan is reunited with his one love, he is the creator and artistic director in my mind at least.   We have his Ragnorok cameo which could be construed as his okey dokey on the fight outcomes as well as the story arcs and level of humor.  I believe all of his cameo's have a comic twist, which he also injected into his comics.
    Zeppelin!

Highly recommended as a singular superhero movie.

[cujobob]

As far as most powerful characters in the Marvel Universe, that varies greatly based on the writer and story. Scarlet Witch and Doctor Strange are two of the most powerful at times, but they reduced their abilities later. Odin's power varies, as does Galactus' (particularly depending on how well fed he is). They're still nothing by comparison with Squirrel Girl, though.