The High Evolutionary
Undoubtedly the most obscure and least known character on this list, the High Evolutionary is also one of the most intelligent – way more so than Batman.
He started life as Herbert Edgar Wyndham but, such was the capacity of his mind, he evolved his own intelligence to the upper limit of human potential, which resulted in him becoming much more than human. He is, in fact, the only human in the entire Marvel universe whose intelligence and knowledge has been declared as being on the same level as certain cosmic entities.
He is the outright best geneticist in the Marvel universe, but is also vastly knowledgeable in other sciences, such as biology, chemistry, physics, engineering, human psychology, medicine, computer science and cybernetics.
His main aim is to evolve the world and the beings in it to become better than they already are. As such, he has used devices to instantly change the landscape and flora of entire planets and even created an “Evolution Bomb” to mutate the entire population of planet Earth into higher beings.
His armoured exoskeleton – which is a device of his own creation – has enabled him to go toe-to-toe with beings like Galactus, utilising powers (that he has developed himself) like cosmic awareness, regeneration, matter manipulation, matter creation, energy manipulation and projection, precognition, telepathy and telekinesis.
He has even created his own army of hyper-evolved animals, which he calls the New Men AKA the Knights of Wundagore. They are incredibly powerful beings unto themselves.
He is a prime example of what comic book humans can do when they are at the very top end of the intelligence scale – something Batman clearly isn’t.
