Marvel has a new fastest hero, stealing Captain Marvel can achieve impossible speeds thanks to their powers, they all just got left in the dust, and the new holder of the title isn't just faster than Marvel's other heroes - he's stronger, too.
In a preview of Power Man: Timeless #3 from Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly, Bernard Chang, Marcelo Maiolo and Travis Lanham, Power Man soars through space, revealing he has crossed the solar system in just two minutes. For context, this is far in excess of the speed of light - even just traveling from the Sun to Earth would take eight minutes at the speed of light.
This Power Man is a version of Luke Cage from a timeline where the hero inherited the abilities of the Hulk, the Sentry and Iron Fist. However, he has since crossed over to Earth-616, ing Marvel's main continuity as its newest and most powerful hero. Now, he finds himself teaming with Apocalypse against the deadly Aeon the Knife.
Power Man can warp reality, allowing him to fly faster than the speed of light.
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Introduced in 2023's Timeless, this new incarnation of Power Man is from a dark future where he was the last living superhero, battling his best friend Danny Rand after the former Iron Fist was possessed by the Moon God Khonshu. That fight left Power Man marooned in the past/alternate timeline of Earth-616, instantly becoming mainstream Marvel's strongest hero of all time. Power Man has the limitless strength of Hulk, the spiritual Chi control of Iron Fist, and the reality manipulation of the Sentry, making him capable of almost anything - including suring the speed of light.
As impressive as this fear is, it's also consistent with how Sentry's powers have been treated in the past. While Bob Reynolds chooses to manifest generic hero powers as the Sentry, his real superhuman ability is to warp reality on the molecular level, allowing him to transmute matter, raise the dead and travel between dimensions. Prior to being killed by the King in Black, Sentry was Marvel's fastest hero, and likewise sured the speed of light - albeit while powered up even further by a Celestial Death Seed.
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Unfortunately, Power Man's immense power is attracting similar universal-tier powerhouses, namely Aeon the Knife. Aeon has the power to destroy anything that touches his body and wields a powerful energy sword that can cut through reality itself - the perfect weapon against Sentry's seemingly unbeatable powers. Even Power Man will need to help to stop Aeon conquering the mutant world of Arakko (formerly Mars.) And while Aeon poses a challenge even to Power Man's strength, he does have one competitor when it comes to speed...
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Following Sentry's death in King in Black, Bob Reynold's unfathomable powers were unleashed, finding a new home in several human candidates, including Mallory Gibbs and Ryan Topper. In Jason Loo and Luigi Zagaria's Sentry miniseries, those powers ended up concentrated in Mallory, who took the new codename Solarus. Mallory now has all the strength and speed of the original Sentry, making her a potential equal to Timeless' Power Man.
The one fly in the ointment for Solarus is that she's entirely new to her abilities, and currently being trained by Misty Knight, meaning it will probably be a few months or years before she's able to unlock her full potential. Conceivably, Solarus would be an ideal companion for the new Power Man, who has spent centuries studying and honing his powers. Notably, Sentry's abilities tap into a primordial power source that leaves their wielder open to the attention of the Void - an equally powerful force of darkness. In his prior fight with Aeon, Power Man confirmed that he is afflicted with the Void, and it's possible that he and Solarus will be brought together by this terrible aspect of their powers.
However, until then, Power Man is officially Marvel's fastest man alive, able to traverse the solar system in two minutes and fly faster than the speed of light. With Jonathan Hickman, Federico Vicentini and Iban Coello's Imperial bringing fresh attention to Marvel's cosmic heroes, it's likely that Power Man will only grow in prominence over the coming year, but only if he survives his next clash with Aeon the Knife. While Quicksilver can still claim the title of the fastest man on Earth, the Marvel Universe is a lot bigger than just one planet, and Power Man and Solarus exhibit a totally different, far superior kind of speed.
