King: The Strongest Man!

Vs battlers, online powerscalers, and debaters often enjoy showcasing feats of power; reality-shattering accomplishments that reflect a character's scale in terms of strength, durability, endurance or otherwise supernatural abilities.

But what if there were a character that breaks that system, an entity that doesn't have any of that yet still has a bevy of incredible accomplishments?

Now, you could bring up someone like, say, Batman. He is an ordinary human who fights alongside and against DC's arguably most powerful beings. However, he does so using technology, resources, and forethought that allow him to reach into the scale of the supernatural. Many even argue that despite having "no powers", he often reacts to bullets, lightning, and even in some cases lightspeed projectiles, and has moments in which he showcases superhuman strength and durability.

There are many cases like this that push the boundaries of what exactly an "ordinary human" can do. Characters like Hawkeye are supposed to have no superhuman abilities beyond extraordinary accuracy, yet have similar feats that put them around the scale of other street-levelers or much higher.

Guts is an ordinary person, he's just handled weapons larger than him since childhood, and has become naturally adept at using weapons others would consider unwieldy to an impractical degree. So he swings around what is considered just a huge hunk of metal as if it were an ordinary sword.

We in the real world know this isn't how human adaptations or swords work, yet there are plenty of fictions that ask us to suspend our disbelief in order to blur the lines between possible and impossible. Perhaps it is the reason we enjoy fiction, because we want to explore these worlds of infinite possibility. We know these things can't be done, but there is always a part of us that wants to believe we can.

The subgenre of isekai addresses this concept. "What if an ordinary person were placed into a fantasy world?" But these ordinary people are often given special weapons, abilities, or special training that allows them to perform on the same level as these fantasy characters. 

But what about a more realistic take on that concept? What if one of us, a physically ordinary nerd, were actually compared with these characters we idolize?

Now hold on, before you click off because you find that boring or demeaning, I promise this is interesting.

I give you, hailing from the One Punch Man universe, KING!

Our tale begins in a seemingly ordinary world, until it is inexplicably invaded by monstrous creatures. One of the first is Crablante, who threatens the life of a school child. The child is then rescued by a random stranger who promptly defeated Crablante. 

The child turned out to be the son of a wealthy CEO, who then founded the Hero Association inspired by this selfless act. The Hero Association became a task force for dealing with monsters and other threats, recruiting around 546 heroes who would be classified into C, B, A, and S-Class rank.

Roughly a year after the incident, another monster attacked, permanently scarring an innocent bystander before he was rescued by the same stranger from before.

Since being attacked, it seemed that monsters would naturally gravitate towards this man in what he considered having the worst luck.  Considering he would survive every encounter, depending on your perspective, it could also be considered tremendously good luck, especially considering what would happen next.

Three years after the founding of the Hero Association, the same survivor of the monster attack had his home destroyed by the emergence of a being named Vaccine Man, the very first monster we see Saitama defeat in the series. The survivor was searching for his belongings in the wreckage until Vaccine Man got one-punched and he slipped in the monster's viscera.

After Saitama was long gone, heroes and news reporters would arrive, finding an already-defeated Vaccine Man and a blood-stained, scarred man standing stoic among the gore and rubble. Too stunned and in shock to explain himself, everyone present assumed he was the hero who took out the monster in one attack. He was also remembered as being sighted at the aftermath of other monster attacks, and was quickly promoted by the Hero Association and placed into Rank 7 of Class S, labeled the Strongest Man.

Needless to say, he was able to purchase a new home as S-Class heroes are well-paid. One might say he was well-off and living a comfortable life, but this situation would only be even more anxiety-inducing for the newly-crowned King. You see, the Hero Association assigns Disaster Level classifications in accordance to monsters, supervillains, or natural events that occur in accordance to their threat to society. It goes Wolf, Tiger, Demon, Dragon, and God, in that order. S-Class heroes are deployed for situations of Threat Level Dragon or higher, meaning King would continue to be placed into even more dangerous situations. 

King's situation is only indicative of the bureaucracy and incompetence of the Hero Association. For example, compare this to Saitama, who had to go through fitness tests and written exams putting him into the lowest in C class, whereas his disciple Genos was put into S class, and King got special treatment and skipped the whole preliminary process. These exams are essentially a formality, and the heroes and their placements into the classes is completely determined by who the Association considers would be the most popular poster child for the company.

One Punch Man is meta-commentary on anime and manga tropes, as well as the anime/manga industry as a whole. As such, the Hero Association is a company first and foremost, and things such as actually protecting people or having heroes be good role models for the children they're marketed towards are secondary to having a good public image and profitable assets.

In fact, King isn't exactly the most virtuous person the first time we see him, as he is actively running from a robot who threatened to kill civilians if King wouldn't fight him.

To be fair to him however, it's not like there was much he could realistically do, and Genos did cover for him. And when Saitama confronts him on this shorty after, King almost immediately comes clean to him. Although somewhat disappointed, Saitama is indifferent about King's power being a lie, saying he still has to be a hero and a figure for people to believe in and that he can still become strong like him.

Since then, Saitama and King have become best friends, lending credence to the idea that opposites attract. 

Ever since King figured out Saitama was the same good samaritan that rescued him a couple years back, King has aspired to be like him. Conversely, Saitama envies and admires King for his ability to feel tension in battle as he has forgotten what it's like, which only goes to show that jealousy is misleading because you truly don't know what a person is struggling with beneath the surface.

Nevertheless, the two have formed a strong symbiotic relationship as the two are the only ones in the world who understand one another, and King can always count on Saitama to have his back if he gets into any real trouble. Saitama doesn't seem to mind, especially since he is mutually piggybacking off King, which both agree is only fair since Saitama's feats were mistaken for King's anyway. 

On his quest to become a true hero worthy of his status, King comes a long way from running from a fight in his debut, shown when he lures Centi-Choro away from the city to confront him, putting his life on the line for others in front of a giant monster while having no way of knowing that Saitama was going to rescue him at the last minute. I believe this is the moment where King became a true hero, because rather than being a figurehead for a shady organization, or having any real power, he embodies all of the qualities of a hero that matter.

Despite never engaging in violence, he completely diffuses threats simply by showing up, never lifting a finger yet being met with swift surrender. Perhaps, in that way, he truly is The Strongest Man. 

Abilities

King Engine

The King Engine is technically King's only real superhuman ability. The King Engine is said to be the noise of King preparing for battle; it is a loud pounding coupled with a deep rumbling, and anyone who hears it becomes deathly afraid. 

In reality, it is the sound of his own heartbeat and blood vessels due to, in King's own words, having the "anxiety of twelve men". The highest recorded blood pressure was 370/380 mm/Hg, and a particularly loud heartbeat is possible to be heard by someone else nearby in a quiet room, but to be heard on a bustling street King must have incredibly tensile or elastic blood vessels and heart muscles in order to withstand such amounts of record-breaking pressure. 

Moreover, animals and humans in the real world seem to have the biological ability to pick up on stress and other emotions. It is possible that King is projecting his own terror onto others, a sort of empathic manipulation that he is unaware he is even doing. 

This is similar to when Carnage Kabuto's "danger instincts" went off when he approached Saitama. (0:59)

King is also 6'1 and has a large facial scar, which contributes to his ability to intimidate.

Ultimate Hellfire Burst Wave Motion Cannon

An unnecessarily long and superfluous signature move that is obviously a joke on attacks from Dragonball and other popular Shonen techniques. 

When King gets into this stance and then crosses and uncrosses his arms, it releases a burst of energy that incinerates everything in its path.

At least, that's what it says in the official in-universe databook released by the Hero Association.

It doesn't actually do anything, but is the ultimate bluff just in case the King Engine isn't effective enough.

"Luck" Manipulation 

Luck can be a power in fiction, it is referred to as Probability Manipulation, which can be used to select a favorable outcome out of a set of possibilities. Things just always seem to work out for King, whether he intends it to or not.

Now, to be clear, the manga and anime make it explicitly obvious that King has no real superhuman abilities, or at least can do nothing too far removed from what an average person can do. One Punch Man may have legitimate narrative tension, drama and heart, but it is still ultimately a gag manga. As such, King is a gag character. His luck is meant to be metatextual.

A bad guy causes trouble, King shows up, and the bad guy immediately surrenders and bystanders hype him up to hyperbolic lengths even though we know he can't actually do anything. We, as the audience, are "in" on the joke. However, as with many gag feats, you can't ignore consistency.

Feats

Strength

Holds Atomic Samurai's sword up for two and a half minutes. Atomic Samurai slashes through Dragon Level monsters and machines on par with S-class, so his sword must be specialized to compensate for his immense strength. Although, King is unable to unsheathe the blade, and the substance of the sword is never stated.

Durability 

As mentioned before, King must have an unusually durable circulatory system in order for the King Engine to be audible. Unfortunately, there isn't a whole lot of information about heartbeats being loud enough to hear, or at least not related to any sort of measurements we can use to quantify this. Or at least, not in humans.

Whale heartbeats are extremely audible, and can be picked up through distances of up to 3 km depending on the species of whale. A blue whale pumps 220 liters, or over 500 pounds of blood per beat. 

We could divide this down to a much smaller scale, but the math doesn't really translate well since we're comparing biology of two different species and vibrations through different mediums, and we can't really relate that to measurements of volume or weight.

This is probably unquantifiable, just let it be known that an effort was made. 

If nothing else, the sound of the King Engine has a street-level range.

King was attacked by Octopus Claw Man, who gave him his facial scar. Octopus Claw Man was a Tiger Level threat, meaning he endangered the lives of "many humans". This classification system is unfortunately vague, but we do have comparisons.

This same monster was also able to scratch Saitama during his hero training before he lost his hair, who could have been anywhere between Olympic Athlete and building level. The fact that the claws peirced King's skin but didn't damage his eye gives further evidence to King having high organ durability.

Speed

(3:00)

King is an E-sports competitor and plays video games professionally, even winning in a couple fighting game tournaments.

The average human can react to something within 250 ms, and pro fighting game players, assuming the game runs at 60 fps and has smooth enough animations to have distinct frames, the fastest a player can react without predicting is within a 20-25 frame window, or within 200 ms. 

Now, it is to note that this doesn't necessarily translate to reaction speed in an actual fight, though, King does demonstrate he can still react fast when giving himself handicaps such as fighting with only two fingers (see background), meaning he can still move his wrists and hands fast enough to win consistently. 

(It is to note that he does this against Saitama who is ftl, but the game is still going to function at the same speed no matter how hard or fast he taps the buttons)

King also stops an assassin's quickdraw. This suggests that his higher than average reaction speed can actually be applied in combat, especially since he wasn't anticipating being attacked and just thought he was being asked for an autograph.

Luck

So this is a bit unorthodox from my usual format of writing these, but these feats are far too plentiful to not include in its own section. Here we go.

Prevents assassins from killing him by spooking them, because he happened to be reading dialogue from a fangame he was developing 

(Starts at 3:11, with King on the left)

Managed to come out completely unscathed when Boros invaded Earth, which is especially impressive considering Melzegard was nearby who was giving the rest of S-Class trouble, and the clash between Boros and Saitama split Earth's atmosphere.

When the hero-hunter Garou attacked King, Saitama happened to be there and intercept him. It put Garou out of commission for several hours, and he interprets this as being unable to perceive King's attack, which makes Garou hesitant to approach him after this. 

Child Emperor creates a device that reads the power levels of heroes. Despite getting the same reading for both King and Saitama, he assumes it must be too high to read and that Saitama is too weak to be read. (Funnily enough the exact inverse of how most people irl perceive Saitama against anyone else)

Atomic Samurai once challenged King to demonstrate his fighting skills by cutting an apple with his sword. King couldn't unsheathe the blade, and put the sword down and walked away. Instead of surmising the obvious, he instead makes the massive leap in logic that King cut through the space between the apple's atoms and that he did it so fast he couldn't perceive it.

Takes a page from Luigi's book and defeats Homeless Emperor and Platinum Sperm by doing absolutely nothing

Happened to perform his Ultimate Hellfire Wave Motion Burst Cannon the exact moment that Garou blitzed the Monster Cadres, accidentally making it look like he destroyed them

When a shapeshifting monster approached him disguised as a hostage, King scared it so bad it not only dropped its disguise, but accidentally unalived itself 

Was once launched in a giant slingshot across the city, but landed miraculously in a net relatively unharmed 

Got knocked out when Saitama and S-class heroes were fighting over helpings in a hot pot. When King arrived late after a massive-scale monster attacked, King got saved from being reprimanded since he was in City Z, were a majority of the monsters lived, as it was assumed he took them out (City Z is where Saitama lives and King was in his apartment, I'm sure you can put 2 and 2 together)

When King finds the real hostage, he excuses himself from a major fight to escort him out. He comes across an elevator the same moment Saitama punches a monster, causing rubble to fall on the counterweight, allowing them to leave.

While in the Monster Hideout (the same location of the last four feats, meaning this is consecutive and he survives a literal monster hive out of sheer luck), a spying eyeball follows King. King slips down a hole in the floor, and shortly after Saitama squishes the eye and promptly defeats the Monster King Orochi. From the perspective of the monster spying on him, he just teleported and immediately one-shot both his eye and Orochi, and fellow S-class hero Tatsumaki happens to be there while he exclaims that.

Weaknesses 

(He just like me fr)

If you've made it this far without skimming, you can probably already guess what King's weakness is. 

King's chances in a VS match are dependent on the win condition. He's at his best when he's able to prevent or stalemate a fight,  or convince his opponent to surrender. In an actual fight to the death, he's going to have a lot more trouble. Moreover, someone who's emotionally detached like Saitama or is otherwise able to read his mind would be able to see through his facade. King is also unable to intimidate or convince robots such as G4 of his perceived power.

If forced into a fight on equal footing, he lacks combat experience and might hold his own against the average person, but would struggle against someone with above average fighting skill.

King's luck also seems entirely circumstantial, he has no control over it in the same way that characters like Jinx and Domino do.

He was also killed by Cosmic Garou, along with most of Earth, before Saitama reversed time with his Zero Punch.

Summary 

(King is spitting straight facts tho)

Advantages

+Above average human reflexes

+Considering he sustained less internal damage from Octopus Claw Man than pre-training Saitama, his organ durability could be pushed to small building level as a high end

+King Engine allows him to intimidate most of his enemies into surrendering

+His large frame and scar adds to his intimidation factor 

+Has experience in surviving multiple high-stress, dangerous situations 

+Absurd circumstantial luck

+Technically the only being to defeat Saitama canonically

+An ALPHA GAMER

Disadvantages 

-Can still be knocked out in spite of his organ durability 

-Can still lose against an experienced fighter 

-More likely to run away or surrender against a stronger opponent 

-His stalling and intimidation tactics are useless against someone who can easily see through his facade 

-If he has Probability Manipulation, it is outside of his consciuos control 

-Unironically plays NSFW anime dating sims

Suggested Opponents 

Otacon

Hal Emmerich is an otaku nerd the same way King is, though Otacon might have an even stronger obsession with anime as Metal Gear Ray was made specifically to recreate mecha anime in real life.

I don't think Metal Gear would be considered standard equipment for him, though Metal Gear MKII from MGS4 might be.

Otacon is far less capable in combat than King, though Otacon's tech might give him an edge. He would easily be intimidated by the King Engine, though may be able to figure him out if they draw things out.

Oliver

Oliver from Worm has the ability to gradually change his appearance over time based on what he views as attractive.

Like King, he has created an image of himself that is separate from his natural self.

He also us a "gamer", part of a proffessional MMORPG team.

He is also charismatic to a superhuman extent, which he can use to charm and manipulate others. However, if escalated to a physical confrontation King would win outright due to his superior size, durability, and reflexes.

Hercule

So this one probably came to mind for you as you were reading this, as King is effectively the Mr Satan of One Punch Man. He has survived similar events such as the Cell Games and being present for the fight with Buu, and befriends Buu the same way King befriends Saitama. 

Hercule's running gag of being perceived as the strongest man on Earth is more of a result of his celebrity status rather than any sort of ability, though he does have superhuman physicality as he drug and punched through busses and took hits from Trunks, Goten, and 18, who still hit harder than most competitors of the Tenkaichi Budokai even when pulling their punches, judging by their casual hits against the Punching Machine. 

However, this is one of the cases where the win condition matters, as the King Engine would likely work on Hercule.

Poco Loco

Poco Loco is a Stand User from the Steel Ball Run universe of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. Stand users have a connection to the spiritual and can manifest psychic energy, though his Stand, Hey Ya, only has the power of positive reinforcement. It let him overcome in unlikely situations, and is metatextually lucky similar to King. 

Hey Ya allowed him to win the Steel Ball Run, an intercontinental horse race, simply by encouraging Poco and giving him confidence. 

Doug

So this is a bit of a weird one, but Doug is a sort of nerd archetypal character with a superhero persona.                  

In a hilarious coincidence, Doug won a fight against a school bully in one hit, which earned him the nickname "One-Punch".

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Well thank you for reading, that's all I have for you today. My name is Hero's Shade and it was my absolute pleasure to show you what I hope was a unique analysis. See you next time!