Supreme Kai power level: as strong as Cell Games Goku?

The Supreme Kai are the celestial creators of the Dragon Ball world, the gods of creation. You would think they would be extremely powerful, possibly equal to the gods of destruction, but most of them aren't. That is especially true of the Supreme Kai we first meet in the Buu saga of Dragon Ball Z, Akira Toriyama's series. My view is that he is stronger than Frieza but well short of the Saiyans of that arc, and one guidebook puts him around the level of full power Goku from the Cell Games.

When you look at how Toriyama portrays him in the manga, and how Toei Animation portrays him in the anime, he doesn't seem that impressive. But he has some strange abilities, and he says certain things that make him a bit stronger than you may remember.

Which Supreme Kai this is about

The Supreme Kai's actual strength has been debated for quite some time, because the series never gives a clear indication of how strong he is. I'm talking specifically about the Supreme Kai of Universe 7 who survived Majin Buu. That rules out the Grand Supreme Kai and the other Supreme Kai, and it also rules out the fusion between him and Kibito. This is Supreme Kai by himself.

It is also worth saying up front that this is Dragon Ball Z scaling, not Dragon Ball Super scaling.

Why Piccolo was spooked by the Supreme Kai

When the Supreme Kai first shows up in Dragon Ball Z, Piccolo is spooked. To me, that has always been more about the fact that Kami was inside of him. Kami was the god of Earth, and he had knowledge of the celestial beings. As god of Earth he knew who the Supreme Kai was, and he was familiar with the god hierarchy. He was the one who informed Goku about King Yemma and King Kai and the other characters from the Other World.

So I think the shock comes from Piccolo, the Super Namekian carrying Kami, realizing that the Supreme Kai would be on Earth at all.

The Supreme Kai says he is stronger than Frieza

In Dragon Ball Z, the Supreme Kai says outright that he is more powerful than Frieza and could have gotten rid of him. So when you scale this character, he has to be at the bare minimum at Android saga level, and the reality is he is stronger than that.

The obvious question is why he never got involved in the fight with Frieza. That can mostly be chalked up to the fact that gods don't get involved in mortal matters unless those matters affect them, and I don't think Frieza was affecting him. We also found out in Dragon Ball Super that he isn't very good at his job, which is why his universe ranked so low.

How the Supreme Kai held down Super Saiyan 2 Gohan

The Supreme Kai is in awe and in shock at how strong Goku, Gohan and Vegeta have become. Strangely enough, he is still able to suppress, or at least hold down, Super Saiyan 2 Gohan while Babidi's minions take his power. That was part of the plan to find out where Babidi was hiding. The fact that he could do it tells you he isn't weak.

However, I don't believe it has anything to do with actual power. The Supreme Kai is the polar opposite of Babidi. Babidi isn't physically strong, but he has strange magical abilities that regular mortals can't use. The same goes for the Supreme Kai. He could hold Gohan down not because he is stronger, but because he has weird celestial abilities that mortals don't have. It's like hacks.

Goku threatens to kill the Supreme Kai, and he backs down

Very shortly after, in the same arc, Goku threatens to kill the Supreme Kai if he doesn't get out of the way and let him fight Majin Vegeta. Goku has his hand out and tells him he will kill him, and the Supreme Kai backs down. If the Supreme Kai were stronger than Goku, there would be no reason for him to back down.

Remember, Goku wasn't in Super Saiyan 2 when he did this. He didn't transform into that power until they went back to the battlefield, where he and Vegeta powered up, unleashed their upgrades in power, and had their epic fight.

Why the Supreme Kai is weaker than Beerus

Through all of this, I hate to say it, but the Supreme Kai comes across as weak. He ends up getting humiliated in the initial fight with Buu. For a god of creation who is supposed to be the opposite of Beerus in a way, it's funny how weak he is.

Dragon Ball Super explains that the gods of destruction are stronger than the gods of creation because you have to be stronger to destroy than to create. Don't forget, too, that Beerus was trained by Whis. There is no indication anywhere in the series that Whis trained the Supreme Kai, and if he had, he would probably be a lot stronger.

What the guidebooks say about the Supreme Kai's power level

Putting it together: the Supreme Kai isn't at the level of Super Saiyan Goku from the Buu saga, he is nowhere near Super Saiyan 2, and he is definitely stronger than Frieza. The only way to get a clearer answer is to go to the guidebooks. Unfortunately, the Japanese guidebooks don't provide much data on him.

There is, however, a Spanish guidebook released in Latin America that addresses it. It doesn't state it outright, but it speculates strongly that the Supreme Kai is equal to full power Goku during the Cell Games, meaning the Goku who fought Cell.

Why that guidebook should be taken with caution

You can't always take guidebooks at face value, because they often contradict the series or get retconned later. On top of that, this one wasn't released by Shueisha in Japan, and Shueisha had nothing to do with it, nor did Toriyama. Even if the Latin American publishers have connections in Asia, we don't know how much Toei or Shueisha participated, and we definitely don't know what Toriyama's involvement was.

We don't even know his true involvement with the Japanese guidebooks. My perception, shared by many other Dragon Ball historians, is that Toriyama doesn't get involved as much as people think. He'll make a couple of statements here and there and help out, but he isn't writing these things from scratch, so creative liberties are taken.

Does the Cell Games Goku comparison make sense?

To me it somewhat makes sense, because it could explain why Piccolo was awestruck. But full power Goku from the Cell Games is stronger than Super Namekian Piccolo was then, and Piccolo in the Buu saga is a lot more powerful than he was in the Android or Cell sagas. So that can't fully justify why he was freaked out. I still think it was more about Kami being inside him.

Where the guidebook's scale does make sense is this: that Goku could not touch Majin Buu. Goku in the Buu saga is astronomically more powerful, even without Super Saiyan 3, and even his base form is beastly. The Supreme Kai of Universe 7 simply can't keep up with them anymore.