Supernatural spent years building to a Biblical apocalypse. Over the course of decades, the Winchesters battled every monster imaginable - from the freak-of-the-week style ghosts and ghouls that didn't take much to kill to the gods, devils, and angels of the later seasons. One of the more impressive things, of course, is that the show managed to continually build to bigger bads, even long after having the boys battle the Devil himself.

The other curious thing about Supernatural, it’s a show about powerful characters, but the budget is usually too low to depict them in action. Fans meet a lot of monsters who claim they can reduce the Earth to a charred ball of flame, but the audience pretty much has to take their word for it. Based on their threats, stories, history, and what is seen, though - some of Supernatural's strongest characters stand out as the most powerful of them all.

UPDATE: 2022/11/13 00:30 EST BY SHAWN S. LEALOS

While Supernatural ended with the regular series and Sam and Dean finally found their peace, the franchise lives on. In October 2022, the prequel series The Winchesters kicked off and fans get to see the story of John Winchester meeting Mary and the two becoming hunters in their own right. This series has made many fans go back to revisit Supernatural because it has cast a new light on many of the things Sam and Dean faced, including the Men of Letters and even some of Supernatural's strongest characters that the boys faced and defeated over the years. With new monsters and the return of some old ones, the Supernatural franchise has some very overpowered angels and demons.

Crowley - King Of Hell

Crowley showed his power through sheer pragmatism and cleverness. In the wake of the power vacuum following the canceled apocalypse, Crowley snuck in and appointed himself the King of Hell, keeping hold of that position for the lion’s share of his time on the show. Throughout his reign, he proved himself to be a good strategist. He knows how to keep a low profile when a bigger bully appears. He’s always looking for ways to consolidate his power through souls, tablets, and alliances with stronger people.

Crowley shouldn't be downplayed as one of Supernatural's strongest characters; he’s still much more powerful than the average demon. Season 8 was the one time he got to be the main antagonist from beginning to end, and while he eventually became an ally to the Winchesters, his power as an enemy shouldn't be forgotten. However, his death in the end showed that he could be weakened and destroyed.

Alpha Vampire - Alpha

The Alphas are the oldest and most powerful of Supernatural's strongest characters, and Crowley spent the sixth season gathering them up. One, and only one, was wily enough to escape: the Alpha Vampire. The Alpha Vampire was introduced in a memorably spooky hallucination Dean had in “Live Free or Twihard,” but he wasn't truly seen in his element until season 7.

Left alone, the Alpha wears impeccable suits and hangs out in a lavish mansion, and even temporarily aligns himself with Sam and Dean, so he can hang onto those nice trappings. One of the more amusing loose ends in Supernatural was the Alpha’s promise that he’d see Sam and Dean “next season.” The character promptly disappeared from the show for many years, before Sam finally killed him in Season 12’s “The Lair.”

Rowena - Witch

Rowena started out as a stronger-than-average witch, but made herself into one of Supernatural’s most fearsome characters when she got hold of the Book of the Damned. She’s used it to warp reality, turn characters into her own personal attack dogs, and even dispelled the Mark of Cain. Fortunately, circumstances and even more powerful villains often forced Rowena into an uneasy alliance with the Winchesters and Crowley.

In the end, she became an ally and mentor to Sam, and the Ruler of Hell. In addition to her power, Rowena had alliances with other witches and covens across the world. There really aren’t many characters who can say they survived two direct eliminations at the hands of Lucifer himself.

Lilith - The First Demon

Lilith spent an entire year traveling the globe and triggering the apocalypse, one seal at a time. Sam paid an enormous personal cost in becoming powerful enough to finish Lilith. Yet she was only a harbinger of what was to come. In Supernatural’s mythology, Lilith has the distinction of being the first demon turned by Lucifer. When she came topside she found a favorite pastime: possessing little girls and forcing them to torment their families.

Using Ruby, she frayed the bond between the Winchesters, and even personally sicced a hellhound on Dean. Sam was so determined to get revenge, he spent a season corrupting himself via the Demon Blood Diet. Lilith is memorable, but mostly because of what’s done in her name.

Abaddon - Knight Of Hell

Abaddon was one of Supernatural's strongest characters in season 9, but at the same time, there’s Metatron, there’s an angelic civil war, there’s Gadreel possessing Sam, there’s the latest and seemingly most irrevocable rift between the Winchesters. Abaddon’s goals never got as much oxygen as they needed to really develop. Who cares if she steals Hell away from Crowley?

But those are story issues. The character was the longest-living and most powerful of Cain’s Knights of Hell, slicing and dicing her way through the centuries. She survived a decapitation and comes back for more later. Just to have a chance in the fight against her, Dean was forced to take on the dreaded Mark of Cain - an act that had huge implications for the following seasons. It took the Mark of Cain and the First Blade for Dean to finally kill Abaddon once and for all.

Cain - The Original Criminal

The original Knight of Hell, the one who trained Abaddon and the others, Cain was one of Supernatural's strongest characters. He was the Cain of Biblical Cain and Abel fame, and the circumstances of his legendary fratricide are more complicated than the Bible would have you believe. He ended his brother’s life to ensure he would get into Heaven and, at the urging of Lucifer, took on the Mark of Cain in order to seal away The Darkness. Cain took his own life, but the Mark resurrected him and made him into the most feared demon in the history of Earth.

He eventually mastered his violent impulses and led a life of quiet solitude, but after a meeting with Dean, fell off the wagon and began exterminating his entire line of descendants. Luckily Dean put a stop to him. Cain was a breakout character in the midst of the chaotic ninth season, and his return go-around was a genuine highlight of the lower-key season 10. Fans didn’t see much of this guy, but he made a hell of an impression in just two episodes.

Eve - Mother Of All Monsters

Eve spawned every single Alpha monster in her time on Earth, then hung out in Purgatory as her descendants overran the planet. She mysteriously returned halfway through the sixth season, and it was several episodes before fans found out why. Like many things in latter-day Supernatural, it was all about Crowley. It was a surprising bit of plotting, setting Eve up as a new Lucifer-level villain only to dispatch her three episodes before the end of the season and reveal Crowley and Castiel as the true villains.

Crowley and Castiel were far more personal antagonists for the Winchesters in the end. Eve as a presence was powerful, but Eve as a character didn’t really make much of an impression until Mary Winchester assumed the role in her final scene. There was still some untapped potential with Eve as one of Supernatural's strongest characters. She’d spent her time on Supernatural creating new monsters like the Khan Worms and the Jefferson Starships.

Raphael - Archangel

The youngest of the four archangels, Raphael was mainly seen as an eye meltingly bright light any time someone threatened the prophet, Chuck. His proper introduction in season 5’s “Free to Be You and Me” drenched the entire Eastern seaboard in a powerful rainstorm, and he made a lot of solemn declarations about fate and the apocalypse. The character proceeded to completely disappear from the fifth season.

When it came time to introduce a villain in season 6, the writers had Raphael in their back pocket. In terms of character, there’s not much here. However, Raphael is a sort of conduit for great scenes and episodes. Castiel’s descent into darkness began when Raphael beat him up in front of everybody in Heaven. The character rarely appeared, considering he (later she) is such a major villain, but conveyed menace, power, and unflexible fanaticism in the brief time onscreen. It took an overpowered Castiel to kill the archangel.

Gabriel - The Trickster

The Trickster, with his wicked sense of humor and ability to warp reality, was responsible for some of Supernatural’s best and most entertaining early episodes. The character had already become a fan favorite by the time he met his end in the fifth season and even though the future would bring episodes that were Trickster-esque in spirit, the character himself was sorely missed.

Fans of The Trickster celebrated the character’s return in Season 13 although, given what he’d been through, his sense of humor was not what it used to be. There was more to The Trickster than what met the eye. The Trickster was revealed to be Gabriel, one of the four archangels. Retroactively his encounters with Sam and Dean were revealed to be offbeat life lessons. In terms of power, he was the one character in season 5 who even came close to finishing off Lucifer. It took Lucifer with the Archangel Blade to finally kill Gabriel.

Metatron - Angel Tablet Power-Up

Everything about Metatron seemed designed to make the audience underestimate him. Even when he betrayed Castiel in the eighth season finale, he still seemed too cuddly to be a real threat. However, he harnessed the power of the Angel Tablets to enact sweeping changes across Heaven and Earth. He kicked all the angels out of Heaven, he kept human souls from ascending, and eventually he went down to Earth in order to assume a role as the new God.

Metatron hung around for a couple more seasons as a shadow of his former self. He ended up in jail, and he made a few desperate grabs for power. Ultimately Metatron was redeemed when he convinced God to start paying attention to humanity again. It took the overpowered Amara to kill the angel.

Castiel - Purgatory Soul Power-Up

The sixth season ended with Cas consuming every soul in Purgatory and declaring himself God. With that cliffhanger, it’s not unreasonable to expect the story to carry through the next season for a while. What a disappointment to lose God-Cas after only one episode. However, the fifth and sixth seasons hold up a lot better when watched straight through.

There are few things more dramatic in a TV show than seeing a favorite supporting character turn into the villain, after all. God-Cas’s reign, brief though it is, was chock-full of darkly funny moments. That moment, though, made Castiel one of Supernatural's strongest characters of all time. Even when his powers went back to normal, he was still able to do just about anything, and he stood up to powerful angels and demons and won more times than not. Even though he died several times, God resurrected him time and time again.

Dick Roman - Leviathan

God-Cas was strong, but he couldn’t stop the Leviathan from tearing his vessel into shreds, proving they were some of the most powerful demons on Supernatural. Their leader was Dick Roman, a character who was thoroughly entertaining just for how different he was from previous Supernatural Big Bads. Dick was cocky, full of corporate doublespeak, and empty upper management platitudes, and he ate people who failed him. That self-satisfied smirk never left his face, even in his final moment.

However, it is difficult to compare the Leviathans to other characters. The Angels avoided them, Crowley steered clear after a disastrous exploratory meeting, and even Death, who rather patronizingly called the Leviathan “entertaining,” kept a low profile. It's not really known how they’d fare against Supernatural’s other heavyweights. Dick didn’t go down without a fight, but without him the Leviathan collapsed into a disorganized mess.

Death - Horseman Of The Apocalypse

The fifth season was spent building to Death's first appearance. It didn’t seem possible that he’d live up to expectations, but he ended up as one of the most striking, terrifying characters on Supernatural. His three fellow horsemen were all dispatched with relative ease by the Winchesters and Cas, so he felt his best play was to scare Dean off with a lot of spooky talk and a lightning storm. The plan only worked for so long before Dean put a scythe in his chest at the end of the tenth season, and he disappeared without a word.

This character is sometimes used to talk up the latest new Supernatural villain, but there’s no bigger hype man than the being himself. It’s possible he was just a glorified reaper, but having seen how Billie took over the role in later seasons, there is no doubt he was a more powerful Supernatural character than he let on.

Lucifer - The Devil

A rarely discussed element of Supernatural is that Lucifer became a different character. He was stately and self-righteous in season 5, but fans met the more taunting version that existed in Sam’s head throughout season 7. By season 11, he permanently became that more snide, jokier character, whether he was played by Mark Pellegrino, Misha Collins, or Rick Springfield. That version of the character was decidedly less intimidating than he had once been as one of Supernatural's strongest characters.

Lucifer’s release in the fifth season triggered a global wave of natural disasters. The Winchesters spent the whole season at a loss on how to get rid of him. Lucifer escaping the cage in season 11 was treated like just another problem. However, the early version was truly dangerous, all the more so because he came across as more persuasive and reasonable. Everything in the first four seasons led up to his release, and all the fallout that came afterward was a result of his capture. In many ways, Lucifer is still the character upon which Supernatural as a whole pivots.

Michael - Ruler Of Heaven

For years, he was the most powerful Supernatural character with the least amount of screen time. Michael didn’t even have his own default vessel like Lucifer. He was only briefly seen possessing established characters like John and Adam Winchester. In both instances, we the audience came to realize that, tragically, Michael was blindly devoted to his destiny, with no free will or agency of his own.

Supposedly his fight with Lucifer would have destroyed half the planet, but Castiel made sure that no one got to see it. Several seasons later, Supernatural introduced the concept of multiple universes, and a much better sense of who Michael is. He was still single-minded, but he plans, he threatens, and he fights. Michael made short work of Lucifer on a couple of occasions throughout season 13, and he finally fulfilled his destiny and decisively defeated his brother in the finale. By taking down Lucifer, the character finally proved himself to be, beyond all doubt, the strongest angel in all Supernatural.

Chuck - God

The notion of Chuck being both a Prophet of the Lord and God was always a bit dodgy. There was speculation that the fifth season implication that Chuck was God was more a wink at how the character was sort of an author avatar for show creator Eric Kripke. Indeed, after his introduction, Chuck appeared in every episode Kripke wrote, and was often used to comment directly on the show’s narrative. When Kripke stepped away during the fifth season, so did Chuck.

Kripke never came back, but Chuck did. Rob Benedict was an unlikely choice to play the ruler of Heaven and Earth, but maybe that made him all the more perfect: no one would suspect him. His God was at times benevolent, aloof, dangerous, and of course, all-powerful, one of Supernatural's strongest characters. But not powerful enough to come out on top in a direct fight with his sister. God also lost all his power in the end at Jack's hands.

Amara - The Darkness

Amara, by a very wide margin, showed off the most awesome display of strength in the series. Wave after wave of powerful characters took a shot at her. Crowley fetched his demon horde, Rowena enlisted a coven of witches, Lucifer called all the Angels into action, and God himself took a shot at her. He may be all-knowing, but even he fell, mortally wounded, and it came down to Dean convincing Amara to stand down in the finale.

Thanks to some decent special effects, the high stakes of the story, and an imposing performance by Emily Swallow, Amara achieved the impossible; she became a more dangerous villain than Lucifer. What finally brought Amara's downfall was Dean betraying her, so she allowed God to absorb her into him, ending her existence.

The Entity / The Shadow

In season 12, Castiel meets what must be his twentieth "totally-for-real-this-time" demise and winds up in the Empty, the afterlife for angels and demons. It’s there that he meets The Entity, a formless creature that takes on Castiel’s appearance and winds up sending the angel back to Earth after he proves too pesky.

It very well may be the case that, contrary to his claim, God actually does have some power over The Empty. Maybe if The Entity came to Earth, he’d have no power, but there’s something cosmic about the Entity, especially compared to the downright approachable Chuck. It's impossible to see his real form without going mad from terror, but more than this, it is heavily implied that the Shadow has power over everything - Death included - and the only reason it isn't used is that the Entity's sole goal is to go back to sleep.

Jack - Nephilim

When Andrew Dabb took control of the show in season 12, he wrote in an arc about Lucifer becoming a parent to a child named Jack, a Nephilim with the potential to become an even more destructive force than his father. Jack's mother was a good-hearted, faithful woman named Kelly, but what impact would his father's evil blood have upon him?

The Winchesters and Castiel strove to be good influences on Jack, something that proved difficult when he disappeared to the alternate universe with his father for a huge chunk of the thirteenth season. Despite everything he went through, Jack’s decency shined through, and he winded up recognizing and rejecting Lucifer for what he is. Lucifer in turn stole his son’s grace, but in the end, he became the new, true 'god', and a being of seemingly limitless power. When Jack absorbed the power from Michael and Lucifer's deaths, he had enough power to strip God of all his power and Jack took over Heaven, making him Supernatural's strongest character power-wise.

Sam & Dean - The Winchesters