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Baldovino Caya
If this first thread gets positive feedback, I will keep it up and make others in the future. I will start with human, live-action characters, and maybe in the future I will advance to other tiers and/or mediums as well.
The characters I will examine here will be judged by 3 main attributes: strength, speed and skill. In addition, other various factors will be put into consideration - such as endurance, stamina, gear, mindset and so on, depending on the character. In the end, a final verdict will be given, giving the character a numerical rating in strength, speed and skill, and detailing all its other noteworthy advantages and disadvantages.
The three main attributes - strength, speed and skill, will be gauged by analyzing the feats of the character in question and comparing them to a certain bar, set by another, unrelated character. The bar set in each field will be higher than the capabilities of our test-subject, and in the end our test-subject will receive a numerical rating (X/10) based on how close they got to this bar. The character chosen for each category will be in pretty much the same tier as our test-subject, and will represent more or less the pinnacle of their category in this tier.
To make it clearer, here's an example: let's say we want to analyze the Punisher. In order to rate the Punisher's strength, we will compare it to the strength of Deathstroke - a character who's completely unrelated to the Punisher, coming from a whole other verse. Deathstroke's strength is clearly above that of the Punisher, and will represent a 10/10 in the field of strength. The Punisher's best strength feats will then be analyzed, using Deathstroke's strength as a measuring stick, and the Punisher will receive a rating according to how close his strength comes to that of Deathstroke. The closer the Punisher comes to matching Deathstroke's strength, the higher the rating (for example, if the Punisher comes very close, he will get a 8/10, maybe even a 9/10, but never higher than 10/10). The same will then be done with speed and skill (with different characters used to set the bar in each category most likely). After those three main fields are fully analyzed, we will look at some of our test-subject's other attributes - both good and bad. These different attributes may differ, depending on the character in question.
This first analysis will discuss everyone's favorite gladiator - Spartacus (unless you're more of a Russel Crowe guy, that is). I decided to make this about him since I think he suffers from a horrible overrating on Comic-Vine, and despite stating my opinion regarding him in detail many times over in different battle threads, and even though I know many people will disagree with me here - I am 100% certain of my opinion on the guy and I want to put it in detail once and for all. Even though it will feature quite a few misinterpreted feats that need to be put into proportion, don't get me wrong here, this isn't a "debunk" thread or a rant of any kind, I loved "Spartacus" and binged it like a madman. I think he is extremely formidable and will pose a challenge to most live-action melee fighters of his tier, I just don't like to see any character's capabilities blown out of proportion.
Spartacus, as we all know, is a very skilled and experienced fighter. He was a battle-tested Thracian soldier before being captured and enslaved, then proceeded to become one of the most famous and successful gladiators in the Roman Empire. After leading a slave revolt and killing his master, Spartacus became the leader of an army comprised of former slaves, mainly gladiators, and dedicated his life to make the Roman Empire bleed. The Romans suffered great losses against Spartacus and his army, until eventually Spartacus was killed in an epic battle against a Roman force lead by Marcus Crassus - even though it was a pretty close call.
Spartacus boasts good physical stats and skill, mostly as a result of the grueling gladiator training that he went through. Let's start gauging just what this ruthless killer has to offer, beginning with a very important and pretty straightforward physical stat - strength.
As explained above, Spratacus's strength will be analyzed and compared to the strength of another, completely unrelated character. That character would be Ser Gregor Clegane, AKA "The Mountain", from the TV series "Game of Thrones", a monster of a man notorious for his inhuman strength. To make things clearer, in case you did not quite understand the explanation I gave above, for the purpose of this thread - let's say Gregor's strength gets a 10/10 rating. Spartacus's own strength will be gauged by analyzing some of his best strength feats and receive a numerical rating out of 10 in comparison to Ser Gregor's strength.
Now, let's start going bit by bit, over some of Spartacus's most prominent strength feats. I'll start with a disclaimer - Spartacus has quite a bit PIS showings. He has some crazy super-soldier-level showings, but those are few and far between and every one of those can be countered with a comparable showing that's simply far inferior. I will start with those outliers, in order to get them off the table first.
What we see here is Spartacus, with some help from Crixus who gave him boost with his shield, jumping straight to a 2nd-story balcony. That is definitely a pretty superhuman feat, no doubt about it. I can't think of many non-enhanced characters, if any at all, who could do such a thing. However, that is one of these outliers I was talking about. Spartacus has made many such jumps throughout the show, and has never achieved this kind of result again.
A different ally this time, but exact same idea. The double beheading was a nice touch and will definitely be taken in mind here, but the jump itself, which is the point here, was nothing special. In fact, Spartacus literally asked for Varro to position his shield for that jump - which means Spartacus knew he couldn't accomplish that jump on his own. Can be seen here.
One last example, from season 3 episode 10, the very last episode of the show. Spartacus used a pile of dead bodies as leverage instead of an ally's shield in this one, but it doesn't make much of a difference so it doesn't matter:
Now, an argument could be made that Spartacus simply jumps as high as the moment requires him to. But that's just another way of saying "he is as strong as the author wants him to be", which means it's quite an illegitimate excuse. Think of all the times when that super-jump could have saved Spartacus. He could have jumped over high walls, clear entire enemy squadrons to reach their commander in the back, etc. That jump wasn't an evidence of Spartacus's real physical capabilities. However, his standard jumps, shown above, do show he is very athletic and in pretty peak physical condition. Credit is given where credit is due, but since I see so many people take that super-jump as if it was legitimate, I had to put this off the table first.
Edit [March 09th 2018]: Seeing as the question of super-jumping led to a discussion with some people in PM, who disagree with me about that super-jump being a complete outlier, I have decided to elaborate a little more.
Here are a few of the instances throughout the show where Spartacus COULD have used the super-jump to his advantage, but didn't, with no reasonable explanation other than genuinely not being able to jump like that:
Generally, if Spartacus has that much strength in his legs, how is it that he never kills, or at least incapacitates men with every single kick he throws? A kick from a leg that powerful would be like getting hit with a cannonball.
This was after Glaber betrayed Spartacus's trust and launched a surprise attack against him. A few seconds earlier in this very scene, Spartacus even told Glaber "someday soon I will have your life", and all that is beside the point that Glaber is the man responsible for Spartacus and his wife being sold into slavery in the first place and the show's main antagonist for the first 2 seasons. That kick should have at least sent Glaber flying outside the walls if not outright killed him, but it did no damage whatsoever other than making Glaber lose his footing.
These are just 2 examples off the top of my head. Spartacus never even knocked out anyone with his kicks. Conclusion - his legs aren't uber-powerful, and that super-jump was an outlier that does not correlate with everything else we have seen him doing (or not doing) throughout 3 whole seasons.
What we see here is Spartacus sending two men literally flying, each with a single, almost casual strike of his sword. That is pretty high-end, to be sure, however it's inconsistent with Spartacus's standard striking strength, by far.
As we can see here, Spartacus took a few meters sprint, jumped from an elevated position, and landed a Superman-punch flat on Nemetes's face. Now, you would expect that a man who can send people flying with casual strikes would have left Nemetes unconscious and with a shattered jaw, if not outright kill him with that kind of punch... but he didn't. He made him lose his footing for a moment and stumble backwards, but not much else. Now, of course, the man has better showings than this one. But nothing he's ever done comes close to this contemptuous ragdolling you saw above.
Now that we've cleared the PIS showings, let's get to real business. Spartacus has pretty good strength, which he gained by maintaining the grueling training routine of a gladiator. Other than sparring and weapon training, the gladiators went through many physical exercises as well:
Another fairly impressive feat is this, from season 1 episode 10. What we have here is Spartacus, who's having some serious emotional breakdown after being forced to kill his best friend Varro, punching the wall in his room. He punched hard enough to send chinks of stone flying, and even burrow a small hole in the wall, but he did kinda wreck his own wrists as well:
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